
Qass I ^ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



speeches 



Only one person in a hundred can 
speak extemporaneously in pub- 
lic. This volume is for the 
other ninety-nine 



y George HAPGooD,Esq. 

^i^j^/:uci^^i^^ PKilfvde/lpKiec 



1907 



I UBH Af?Y of C0f«8RlfSS 
Two Goujes Rticeivsrf 

AUG S9 idor 

Cooyrtetn Entry 
cuss A xxc, No. 

^^^ COPY Q. . 



.04 H 3 



Copyright 1907 by The Penn Publishing Company 



Ready-Made Speeches. 



■:i 



CONTENTS 



On Presentation of Flag to Military Organiza- 
tion II 



"^ Introduction 5 

^^ 

V II Presentation of Sword and Memorial 16 

III Workman to Foreman Who is About to Resign 

His Position 21 

IV Upon Presenting a Prize for Marksmanship . . 26 

V Presentation by Boys to Teacher About to go 

Abroad , 30 

VI Presentation to the Victor of an Inter-Aca- 
demic Baseball Club 34 

VII Upon Presenting a Set of Dickens' Novels to 

the Best Scholar of THE School ...... 41 

VIII To A Public Official Upon His Retirement from 

Office 47 

IX Presentation to a Popular Political Leader . 53 

X Upon Tendering a Dinner to a Popular Young 

Bachelor Just Returneo-from Abroad .... 60 

XI Presentation by Players to the Manager of a 

Baseball Club 66 

XII At a Dinner in Honor of an Old Friend After 

Years of Absence 73 

XIII At the Opening of a Meeting of Physicians . . 77 

KIV To THE Graduating Class of a Young Ladies' 

Seminary 81 

XV At the Dedication of a Public Schooi.house . ^^ 

3 



4 CONTENTS 

XVI Upon the Dedication of a Flag Pole upon 

Public School Grounds 92 

XVII Address to a Minister About to Depart for 

Europe 97 

XVIII To a Meeting of Young Men Interested in 

Local Politics 104 

XIX Presentation of a Watch to a Young Man 

{^Humorous) 113 

XX Presentation to the Captain of a Fishing 

Schooner for an Heroic Rescue . . . 118 

XXI Address of Congratulation at the Opening 

OF A New Political Club 125 

XXII To THE Graduating Class OF A Boys' Academy 134 

XXIII Address to a Temperance Meeting .... 139 

XXIV Address to a Club of Working Boys . . . 146 

XXV Address by Newly Elected President of a 

Young Men's Literary Society 151 

XXVI Address Delivered by a Layman at a Fu- 
neral in the Absence of an Ordained 
Minister 155 

XXVII Opening Address by the President of a 

Ladies' Social Club 160 

XXVIII Presentation of Prize to Champion Fisher- 
man [Humo7'ous) .... 170 

XXIX Address to Graduating Class of Trained 

Nurses i75 

XXX Presentation of Picture to Publisher by 

Authors i79 



INTRODUCTION 

All Americans insist upon speaking— not nec- 
essarily all at one time, but rather frequently. 
This fact is not a mere accidental peculiarity of 
our race. It is the perfectly logical result of our 
ancestry and our national histor\^ A free people, 
whose theory of government includes the personal 
right and obligation of every citizen to participate 
in public affairs, must inevitably be possessed of a 
strong impulse toward public speech. It may, 
therefore, be definitely assumed that any Ameri- 
can may, at any time, find himself moved to make 
a speech. 

But if we are a speaking people, we are also a 
very busy people. As a rule, we have not the 
time to become orators as well as artisans and 
men of business. We will speak, but we will not 
devote ourselves to the formal art of speech- 
making. As a resultof these conditions, there is a 
constant and entirely legitimate demand for the 
kind of assistance which this little book is w^ritten 
to supply. It is believed that the speeches which 

5 



6 INTRODUCTION 

it contains will be found sufficiently varied to 
meet pretty much any exigency which is likely 
to confront the average man of affairs. 

In presenting them to the public it seems proper 
to preface them with a few simple suggestions as 
to their most efficient use. 

First, in the matter of length they have been 
regulated by the requirements of their various 
themes, as those themes appealed to the author. 
He has, however, kept in sight the probability 
that in many instances the speaker may desire to 
sa}^ many things not in the original speech, and 
yet may wish to profit by the formally prepared 
address. Having respect for this very laudable im- 
pulse, the author has endeavored so to adjust the 
several parts of the speeches that the speaker, after 
availing himself of the carefully prepared opening, 
may give full expression to his own personal 
opinions and suggestions, and return at the close 
to the conclusion as herein given. This may, 
perhaps, be better explained by an illustration. 
Take, for example, the first address in the book — 
that upon the Presentation of a Flag to a Mili- 
tary Organization. 

At the conclusion of the long opening para- 
graph, after the words " within the power of a 



INTRODUCTION 7 

great people," the speaker may properly give any- 
further views of his own, or any illustration or 
reminiscence which may seem to him to add to the 
interest of the occasion. Of course such interpola- 
tions should be sufliciently related to the general 
line of the address not to lead the hearers wholly 
away from the subject. Upon completing his 
interpolations, the speaker can easily take up the 
next paragraph, " The strong right arm of our 
own nation is its army," and finish the address 
with no visible break in its unity. 

Second, there are many persons who are ex- 
cellent conversationalists but who superstitiously 
believe that they cannot " speak in public." If 
by speaking in public we mean those vastly formal 
occasions which involve large halls, brass bands 
and " thousands of upturned faces," they may, or 
may not be right. Only experiment can assuredly 
answer their doubts. If, however, they have in 
mind such semi-public occasions as call for the 
greater part of our speech-making, they are 
generally wrong. The fact is there is no essential 
line of demarkation between such speech-making 
and ordinary conversation. The speaker should 
bear this in mind. If, under any circumstances, 
he is to speak to a dozen or twenty people he 



8 INTRODUCTION 

must of course speak with sufficient volume and 
clearness to make himself heard. This is just as 
true when he happens to be talking to a group of 
his most intimate friends, as it is on one of those 
occasions which we denominate as "public." 
Involuntarily he so modulates his voice as to 
meet the visible conditions. This he does among 
his friendsj with no suggestion of embarrassment, 
because he does not know that he is speaking in 
public. It is, therefore, not the actual publicity, 
but the exaggeration of its significance which 
causes the trouble. In other words, the difficulty 
is largely self-manufactured. Don't manufacture 
it. Speak naturally. 

Third, speak deliberately enough to permit 
every idea to place itself definitely in the mind 
of the listener. This is immensely important. 
Of course a speech which nobody understands can 
hardly be regarded as a success. But aside from 
that consideration the effect of deliberation 
is of vital importance to the speaker himself. 
So long as his own mind is conscious of the 
delivery of consecutive and significant ideas, it 
tends to preserve its own normal condition. He 
can " hold himself together " and pass over an}^ 
number of small embarrassments. If, however, a 



INTRODUCTION 9 

speaker once begins to feel that he is " not get- 
ting" anywhere with his speech, he is in danger 
of becoming panic-stricken. Therefore, speak 
deliberately, and if you find yourself yielding to 
the impulse to get through at any cost as soon as 
possible, check the impulse at all hazards. Take 
3^our time. Remember that upon such occasions 
you are really master of the situation. 

Fourth, as to the matter of gestures, position of 
body, and other such incidentals as are discussed 
in works on oratory, we advise that they be 
ignored as a subject of conscious thought. If in 
speaking you have an impulse to move your hand, 
move it. The impulse is generally true to nature. 
If, on the contrary, 3^ou are inclined to speak 
without such movements, do so. Avoid equally 
rigid and slovenly positions ; the one^out of respect 
to yourself, and the other out of respect to your 
audience. In the use of the voice, the natural 
inclination is to modulate it to suit the size of the 
group which you may be addressing. If you 
realize from the expression of those most remote 
from you that your words are not carrying, speak 
louder. As to the pitch of the voice, it is to be 
observed that much depends upon the manner of 
breathing. If we continuously use only the upper 



10 INTRODUCTION 

portion of the lungs — as is very likely to be the 
case — our voice is likely to be high, and easily to 
become strained. If we vary our habit by breath- 
ing slowly and filling the lower lungs, the voice 
becomes deeper and more expressive. 

To sum up, we advise the speaker who does not 
desire to devote himself to oratory as an art, and 
yet who wishes effectually to address an occa- 
sional meeting of friends or fellow citizens — be 
deliberate, be natural and remember that you, 
and not those who are listening to you, are the 
real master of the situation. 



Ready-Made Speeches 



ON PEESENTATIOX OF FLAG TO MILITAEY 
OEGANIZATION 

Colonel : 

A free people can never be indifferent to 
its soldiery. We may not all be so constituted as 
to achieve glory upon the field of battle. Many 
of us, indeed, may look hopefully forward to the 
day when war shall have passed away, when the 
pruning hook shall have superseded the sword, 
and all human controversies be adjusted through 
the methods of arbitration. None, however, can 
be so blinded as not to recognize and acknowl- 
edge the logic of history. Thus far along the 
pathway of civilization the success of the nations 
— aye, even their very existence — has depended 
upon the arbitrament of the cannon and bayonet. 
And yet, sir, may it not be fairly said that the 



12 EEADY-MADE SPEECHES 

greatest victories of arms are bloodless ? A 
thousand wars have been prevented by that visi- 
ble preparation for the conflict which warns the 
aggressor that blow will be met by blow, and 
freedom defended by every means and at every 
sacrifice within the power of a great people. 

The strong right arm of our own nation is its 
army. Upon a hundred hard fought fields, against 
many a valiant foe, the American soldier has estab- 
lished and maintained the prowess of our arms. 
For such service and such a sacrifice as his, the 
world has no just compensation. Our debt to 
him is eternal. So we, who safe within our 
homes and shops and ofiices pursue the even 
tenor of our ways, knowing that we can in 
no-wise pay our debt, must content ourselves with 
giving, now and then, some slight token of our 
gratitude. 

It is such an impulse, sir, which now — in the 
absence of one better fitted to the task — has 
brought upon me a great honor. A command 
which I dare not disobey, and which I would I 
might the more worthily fulfil, has been laid 
upon me by my fellow citizens. Fortunately for 
me, no dulness of speech and no absence of 
grace upon my part can dim the glory of this 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 13 

beautiful banner. On behalf of the citizens of 

, I present to you, its worthy commander, 

and, through you, to the gallant regi- 
ment of , this American flag. 

In placing it in your custody I, and those for 
whom I so inadequately speak, are filled with a 
great confidence. We know that, although the 
smoke of battle may obscure these ever glorious 
stars, and bursting shells may rend asunder 
these white and crimson stripes, the purity of 
this banner shall never be marred by the stains 
of treason nor polluted by the touch of cowardice. 
Receive it, if j^ou will, as at once the emblem of 
our nation's glory and the token of our city's 
love. 



RESPONSE TO THE FOREGOING 

Mr. 

It has never been quite clear to me why 
nature has denied to the man of arms the gift of 
eloquence, but the fact is beyond dispute. If at 
this moment the beating of my heart could make 
reply to your kind and glowing words, you 
would know with what pride — ^for myself, and 



14 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

yet more strongly for my comrades in arms— I 
accept your beautiful and appropriate gift. 

You have expressed the hope that the time 
may not be far distant when war shall have 
completed its dreadful work and vanished from 
the face of the earth. That hope, sir, is shared 
by every soldier who has faced the terrible 
carnage of modern warfare ; that dream of peace 
on earth and good will to all human kind has 
sweetened the slumber of many a brave man 
awaiting the bugle call upon the eve of battle. 
It was not, you will remember, from the lips of 
a civilian but from those of as brave a soldier 
as ever drew sword from scabbard, that the 
world received that terrible judgment, " War is 
hell." 

And yet, sir, until Justice shall have established 
her gentler sovereignty over all the nations of 
the earth, the patriot cannot always be a civilian. 
The strong right arm must not be allowed to 
wither and grow weak. There must be armies 
of war that there may be the yet greater armies 
of commerce and industry. To vary the figure 
of your own expression, the musket cartridge — 
although it may never pass the muzzle of the 
rifle — is, nevertheless, the symbolic ounce of pre- 



EEADY-MADE SPEECHES 15 

vention whose worth is infinitely greater than 
the pound of cure. 

We accept your gift, and with life and honor 
and all things else within our power, will guard 
it from dishonor, and, if need be, follow it to 
victory or death. 



II 



PEESENTATION OF SWOED AND 
MEMOEIAL 

Colonel : 

Your comrades in arms, reinforced by so 
many of your civilian friends as have been able 
to secure the privilege, have united upon this oc- 
casion, to testify their appreciation of your valor 
as a soldier, your worth as a citizen and your 
steadfastness as a friend. If any names shall be 
missing from the signatures to the simple memo- 
rial which I now hold in my hand — any name 
which your heart would lead you to seek among 
the rest — you will know that none are absent by 
their own choice. Circumstances of haste, dis- 
tance and preoccupation, have made it impossible 
to communicate with scores of those who will 
feel their omission a bitter disappointment. It 
was unavoidable. Yet, in part, the remedy lies 
with you. You must regard us who have here 
written our names, as but the representatives of 
many, many more whose hearts are with you, 
now and always. 

16 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 17 

Through channels of communication wholly 
distinct from yourself we have learned of your 
gallant conduct in a crisis w^hen much depended 
upon your instant action. We glory in your 
courage — that courage which bringing its inspira- 
tion to a thousand men, held them face to face 
with a powerful and veteran foe. Yet those of 
us who have known you best could have foretold 
your conduct. The modesty and reticence of 
your bearing along the usual walks of life have 
not misled us. Back of your modesty we knew 
there was a wall of character which, in time of 
danger, would hold you rock-like to your dut}^ ; 
back of your reticence, we never doubted there 
was the voice of command. To us, the thing 
you did was no revelation. 

And yet— while we cannot confess surprise, 
neither can we conceal our pride. You were 
tried, and were found in all ways more than 
equal to the trial. So we wish, by some token 
which may not too soon perish from your 
memory, to testify our emotion. 

Accept sir, this sword in memory of this oc- 
casion. May it, at our country's need, sever all 
things save the bond of respect which now binds 
us to you. Accept, also, this letter wherein, in 



18 EEADY-MADE SPEECHES 

such phrases as come at our poor command, we 
have sought to express the feelings of our hearts. 
If in the future — as surely must be the case — 
the recognition of your soldierly qualities shall 
call you to higher rank and greater responsibil- 
ities, may this sword and these now familiar 
names ever keep for us a place in your memory. 



EESPONSE TO THE FOEEGOIlfG 

Mr. Brownwell : 

The eloquent sentiments which you have 
just expressed upon behalf of yourself, my com- 
rades in arms, and my civilian friends, have far 
overshot the mark of my deserts. It in the face 
of danger I have not turned my back in flight — 
if in some small measure, I have upheld that 
standard of courage which the soldiers of this 
republic have established upon many a bloody 
field— I am glad. Far be it from me to slight or 
belittle that quality of manhood which, in its 
highest demonstration leads to the hazard of 
fortune, liberty and life, itself, in defense of 
home and country. Not yet can this world 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 19 

dispense with that element of human nature 
which we call physical courage. 

But we must not be misled by the gleam 
of polished rifle barrels, or the attraction of new 
uniforms. Courage — even that which w^e call 
physical courage — is not the monopoly of the 
soldier. Every day, in city and tow^n and 
country hamlet, deeds of courage are performed 
by nameless men and women wiio never so much 
as suspect themselves of heroism. It is upon the 
soldier on the field of battle that the searchlight 
of fame is forever focused. Why, in the economy 
of nature, is this true ? Has it no higher mean- 
ing than to feed the vanity of the man in arras ? 
I think it has. For, sir, the same searchlight 
which reveals the hero " facing fearful odds for 
the hearthstones of his country and the altar of 
his gods," brings also into public view the traitor 
and the coward. It performs, therefore, not 
only a " service of praise," but a far more im- 
portant "service of defense." So, if now I ac- 
cept your over-kind good will and ever in the 
future fall short of the true stature of an Ameri- 
can soldier, the same keen sight which now" is 
quick to see my merit shall then be quick again 
to see my fault, and hold me up to obloquy. 



20 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

One more word as to the length and depth of 
human courage. You suggested that my single 
act, " bringing inspiration to a thousand men, 
held them face to face with a powerful and 
veteran foe." For all of truth that may be 
within that statement I am very thankful. But 
let me for an instant recall that picture and 
throw upon it the calm white light of reason. If, 
upon my part, it required courage to go forward 
let me tell you that, at -that moment, it would 
have required tenfold courage to have done 
aught else. What bribe of fortune, wealth or 
rank, think you, could have tempted me — or any 
man with red blood coursing through his veins— 
to have turned himself about and looked into the 
faces of those thousand men — whose only fear 
was that they might fail to reach the thickest of 
the fray —and to have ordered a retreat ? I, sir, 
w^ould not have dared. 

But gladly I accept your gifts. You ma}^ rest 
assured that ni}^ children's children shall tell with 
pride the history of this sword, and with loving 
eyes, shall read and read again the names which 
now, and to my dying day, shall mean so much 
to me. 



Ill 

WOEKMAN TO FOEEMAN WHO IS ABOUT 
TO EESIGN HIS POSITION 

Mr Forbes : 

My fellow workmen in the shops have picked 
me out to say a few words to you for them and 
myself. We hear that you are going to resign 
your position as foreman and leave the works for 
good. You are going to a better position, and 
for that part of it we all congratulate you. 

But after saying that, we feel bound to say 
that we are sorry to have you go. We have 
Avorked here, you as foreman and we as work- 
men, for a good many years — some of us ever since 
the day you first came into the shops. It would be 
absurd for me either to deny or pretend to for- 
get that there have been differences between us— 
times when your idea and ours have brought some 
misunderstandings and some ill feeling. You 
may have been right, or we may have been right, 
or both of us may have been partly wrong. But 
it doesn't matter now. 

21 



22 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

We have talked it all over and what we want 
you to remember is this. We don't forget that 
you have been strict in holding us to our day's 
work. But you have never forgotten that we 
were men — a good many of us with wives and 
children to look after. You haven't tried just to 
get out of us all that was possible. No man has 
gone to you with a reasonable complaint and 
been refused a patient hearing. There's a whole 
lot in that, just being willing to hear what a man 
has to say when he thinks he isn't getting all 
that's coming to him. 

Then you've sympathized with us when we've 
had hard luck. We don't forget that you've 
always been able to understand how a workman 
or his wife or child might be sick without his 
being any more to blame for it than you were 
yourself. You've always acted as if you believed 
that in a general w^ay we were doing and living 
about the best we could under the circumstances. 
It's been a good deal as if you understood that we 
and you were all of one kind, under different 
conditions. 

Another thing. While you'v^e been pretty 
strict and haven't allowed much shirking, you've 
always been hard at it yourself. You've never 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 23 

sat on the fence, as you might say, and watched 
us just for the sake of seeing us work. We've 
seen bosses who did that sort of thing and thought 
they were earning their salary. We've always 
felt that you and we were working together, try- 
ing to do the same job. 

Perhaps all this may not be very plain, but 
you'll get the idea that we wish you luck. To 
help you to remember us we ask you to accept 
this pin. It isn't very big and it didn't cost a 
fortune, but it stands for a lot of friendship. 



RESPONSE TO THE FOREGOING 

Mr. Wilkins, and Friends : 

I accept this beautiful gift with the greatest 
pleasure, and I understand perfectly well what it 
means. After working together for an average 
of perhaps a dozen years, you've looked back 
over our experience and find it in your hearts to 
wish me good luck. It means a great deal to me. 
The position of the foreman— or of any other 
man in the position of a " boss " over other men— is 
not an easy one. He stands between two interests 
which at times seem to pull against each other — 



24 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

his emj3loyer, and the men under hhnupon whom 
he must rely for results. Too often from the 
standpoint of the employer he is expected to see 
that each day's work is done, regardless of the 
cost to others. Too often, on the other hand, 
the workmen fail to understand his position, and 
come to look upon him as their natural foe. Yet, 
for efficient results, he is wholly dependent upon 
the men with the tools in their hands. I am 
glad that, in the main, there has been no such 
misunderstanding between you and me. 

Yet, at the risk of seeming a little ungracious, 
I must correct one statement you have made. If 
you feel that at any time I ever abandoned the 
effort to get from you the utmost I could, both in 
quality and quantity, you have misread my pur- 
pose. That is just what I believe I really accom- 
plished. But, of course, I could never have done 
that if I had forgotten that you were men, and 
not machines. The boss who insists upon working 
the man whose heart and thoughts are not in his 
task — whose wife or child is calling for him at 
home beside the sick bed — in my judgment is not 
getting good work for his employer, and is slight- 
ing his job. Personally, as man to man, I have 
always sympathized with you in your bad luck and 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 25 

rejoiced in your prosperity, just as I believe you 
would have done with me ; but what I want to say 
now is this : experience has long ago convinced 
me that, in the relation of employer and work- 
man, true humanity and true self-interest are 
identical. It isn't good business on either side, 
to forget that we are all human beings. 

I shall always value this gift. To me it is " a 
certificate from my last place " — an evidence that 
those who knew me best believed that I did not 
fail. Thank you very much. 



IV 

UPON PRESENTING A PEIZE FOE MAEKS- 
MANSHIP 

All the world admires the man who can hit 
the mark. There is something about the capacity 
for directness — the ability to send a message, a 
wordora bullet straight to its intended destination 
— which commands respect even when we, our- 
selves, may chance to be the target. In our 
daily communications, either of business or 
friendship, what is more trying than the person 
whose habit of thought, or speech, or action leads 
him merely to guess, or hint, or falter. It always 
seems as if the life of such a person may be filled 
with good intentions which, merely for want of 
the impulse of directness, never reach a useful 
goal — never score. Even the crude thought and 
the feeble deed, if sent straight to their purpose, 
bring more of result than the better effort which 
loses its way. 

If this may seem far afield from that which is 
in our minds upon the present occasion, I believe 

26 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 27 

the appearance belies the fact. There is an 
analogy between the man who looks you squarely 
in the eye and tells you exactly what he means, 
and he who sends the rifle ball straight to the 
bull's-eye of the distant target. We must be par- 
doned then, if we see in your magnificent achieve- 
ment of nerve and eye, somewhat more than the 
mere accomplishment of the rifleman in the 
tournament. The powers which then and there 
brought to you such signal success, testify to the 
possession by you of certain strong elements of 
manhood which should mean far more to your 
life than any testimonial which we may present. 
Therefore, I congratulate you. 

But stepping down now from philosophy to 
fact. In the recent tournament you were pitted 
against men whose reputations as riflemen had 
already reached across a continent. Those of 
your friends who know you best never doubted 
but that you would compel your opponents to look 
well to their laurels ; and yet it would be uncandid 
in them now not to confess the limits of their ex- 
pectations. You would be " among the foremost 
ten." Such was their bold prediction at the out- 
set. The event has proven them far too modest. 

As chairman of the committee of awards and 



28 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

honors, it has now become my pleasant duty to 
place in your hand this beautiful memorial of 
your success. Upon it, the art of the engraver 
has wrought the symbols of the marksman's skill. 
By its inscriptions is forever recorded the fact 
that out of this famous contest — none the less 
earnest in its strivings, by reason of the absence 
of the issue of life and death — you have emerged 
bearing its highest honor. By merely multiplying 
words I can say no more. Your marksmanship, 
sir, was superb. In memory of your achievement, 
and of the earnest appreciation of all who wit- 
nessed it, accept this medal. 



eespo:n'se to the foeegoing 

Mr. Chairmais^ : 

While I listened to your flattering recital 
of my success, I have been filled with wonder. 
I have been wondering what, in this moment of 
trial, has become of that steadiness of nerve to 
which you have so eloquently referred. I seem 
to miss it. Frankly, sir, I am neither accustomed 
to winning prizes nor making speeches. If, during 
the contest which has just closed, while I was in 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 29 

the act of taking aim, some imp of torment has 
whispered to me that my success would involve 
a public speech — well, sir, you'd have seen a 
different score. I couldn't have hit a flock of 
barns. Perhaps it is lucky that none of us ever 
know exactly what we may be compelled to face 
on the day after to-morrow. 

But I'm glad I took the prize. You wouldn't 
believe me if I pretended not to care. I wouldn't 
believe myself. I came here intending to put up 
the best I had, but I was mighty dubious about 
standing in with '*the best ten." In fact there 
was a time when, as I stood looking at the score, 
it occurred to me that if somebody would give 
me a good cigar and guarantee me, well say, 
about fifteenth place on the record, I would have 
considered the proposition with great care. How- 
ever, I braced up and gave you the best there was 
in my gun. 

I hope what you have said as to the meaning of 
good marksmanship in other directions — about the 
man who thinks, talks, and acts straight — is all 
true. At any rate, I can say that it makes me 
feel like trying hereafter to make it true in my 
own case. I shall keep this medal as long as I 
live, and then pass it down. I thank you. 



PEESBNTATION BY BOYS TO TEACHEE 
ABOUT TO GO ABEOAD 

Mr. Bartol : 

Before you take your leave and set forth 
on your journey, we, your scholars, have a few 
words to say to you. I have been chosen to say 
them. We have no idle regrets at your de- 
parture. The considerations which, after these 
many years of application, demand that you seek 
rest and restoration of health appeal no less 
strongly to us than to yourself. We are glad to 
have you go, and yet we are sorry. 

And it has seemed to us fitting that we should 
make your departure the occasion for saying 
some things which we earnestly feel, but which 
could not well find room for expression in the 
routine of our daily intercourse. For many 
years j^ou have been our intellectual companion 
and guide. Under your leadership, we have 
taken many journeys into the all but undis- 
covered countries of science and literature. You 

30 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 31 

have shown us many things which it has been 
good to see. You have made even the dry and 
sandy desert of mathematics to bloom as the rose, 
and it is our belief that — had fate required the 
miracle at your hands — you would have made 
even the study of grammar endurable. 

But it is not, after all, your capacity as an im- 
parter of knowledge which we shall most sadly 
miss. Imagination foretells the time when knowl- 
edge may be presented to our minds by means 
which are baldly mechanical. The pressure of a 
button may unroll to our vision the recapitula- 
tions of history or science, or the phonograph 
may give us our Latin— with both pronuncia= 
tions. Possibly even the future may produce 
some combination of college and department 
store in which one may procure a complete 
education packed and adjusted immediate for 
use. Who can tell ? ^ 

Some things, however, invention cannot give 
us. The kindly stimulus of human sympathy ; 
the casual word which brings courage out of de- 
spair ; the smile, when one knows that he 
deserves a frown ; the patience which, confident 
of future contrition, overlooks the present 
fault — these, and all things else which unite to 



32 EEADY-MADE SPEECHES 

give meaning to the word " friend," we shall 
miss when you have gone. 

It is with this feeling strong in our hearts that 
we now ask you to accept this little memento. 
It is poor indeed unless your eyes may see and 
your heart divine the love which goes with it. 



EESPONSE TO THE FOEEGOING 

Friends : 

You can hardly realize the pleasure which 
has come to me with the knowledge that now at 
the end of our association as teacher and scholars, 
you can look upon me more as a friend than an 
instructor. I am proud of my profession ; I am 
vain enough to believe that within the possibili- 
ties of my natural limitations, I have not worked 
in vain ; I am more happy yet to hear your as- 
surance that all these vears of active service as a 
teacher have not robbed me of that most precious 
of all human capacities — the power to give and 
evoke friendship. Sometimes I have feared that 
the long attitude of supervision and criticism 
which must inevitably be that of the teacher of 
boys, had deprived me of that— what shall I call 



ready«:made speeches 33 

it — that flexibility of nature and bearing which 
is so essential to the relation of friend to 
friend. 

You have spoken very kindl}' of that which I 
have tried to do for you. It is not quite possible 
for me to make clear exactly what you have been 
to me. You have been good boys, — which does 
not at all mean that you have always done the 
thing I wished or left undone the thing I did not 
wish. But it does mean that, so far as I can now 
recall, you have never done any act indicating or 
suggesting a depravity of heart or brain. In the 
months and years to come, when I recall the ex- 
periences of these now past school-days — as I 
shall do many and many a time — there is no 
single episode which I shall wish to miss because 
of any evil that is in it. Some, of course, will 
be more pleasant than others, but none will bring 
with it the flavor of bitterness. 

This little chain, of which you speak somewhat 
too modestly, will lend its links to the holding 
together of the scores of recollections which have 
made up the history of our association. I shall 
always cherish it. May all your natures develop 
to the fulness of your respective powers, and all 
your lives be happy. 



VI 

PEESENTATION TO THE VICTOE OF AN 
INTEE- ACADEMIC BASEBALL CLUB 

Captain : 

Upon Saturday last your club won the final 
game of the series scheduled for the present year, 
and so became the acknowledged champion of 

the Inter-Academic League for the year 

190-. This victory brings with it somewhat of 
burden as well as happiness — the burden being 
the necessity which you are now under of being 
obliged to listen to a presentation speech by one 
who is neither a ball player nor an orator. 

Even under this double disability, however, I 
feel myself capable of appreciating the significance 
of your victory and of telling you, in a homely 
way, what I think of it. It was my pleasure to 
witness every game of the series in which your, 
club participated. I enjoyed every moment of the 
time, notwithstanding the severe solidity of the 
bench upon which I spent the better part of three 
hours. When the last game was finished I found 
that certain impressions had taken rather a strong 

34 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 35 

hold on my mind, and they were not always the 
impressions which would seem most naturally 
to result from an athletic contest. I am going 
to mention them in the order of their effect upon 
my own mind. 

First, I realized that, from beginning to end, 
neither yourself nor your men had forgotten that 
they were gentlemen. By that I do not mean 
that there was any want of robust action and, at 
tunes, rather vigorous speech. The inevitable 
differences as to the merits of this or that im- 
pending decision effecting your chances for 
victory arose and were threshed out without 
gloves. You were all manifestly eager for 
victory, striving with every power of brain, and 
nerve, and muscle. 

What I do mean is that you seemed to me in- 
stinctively to understand when you had gone the 
full length to which a fair-minded man may go 
in insisting upon a right, the decision of which 
he has already delegated to some one else, there 
was no echo of a threat, and no suggestion of 
misrepresentation or unfair dealing. While you 
are not " our boys " in the sense of representing 
the particular institution with which I am 
connected, I was nevertheless proud of you. 



36 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

Stick to your colors. Never forget that just 
simply '^ being a gentleman " is always a part of 
the game, and not by any means the easiest 
part. 

But turning now to the game itself. Some of 
you, I suppose, are saying to yourselves that, 
after all, the performance was not intended as " a 
great moral show," and are wondering whether 
I saw " nothing doing " during the games except 
''good manners." Yes, I saw a number of things. 
I have said that I am not a ball player. If 
any one doubts the accuracy of that denial I 
can prove my assertion by scores of perfectly 
credible persons who have witnessed my perform- 
ances upon the diamond. Nevertheless, I 
confess to still having a touch of the disease in 
my blood. By way of example I am reliably 
informed that during one of the critical situations 
of your last game— the question involved being 
the comparative speed of a runner starting from 
third base, and a ball traveling by the air line 
from centre field— I am told, I say, that I w^as dis- 
covered standing, instead of sitting, upon the 
bench ; that I was waving my hat in one hand 
and a bag of peanuts in the other, and that when 
quiet was restored, it was found that the hat 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 37 

belonged to my neighbor on the right and the 
peanuts to a small boy on my left. Personally I 
don't seem to remember much about it. 

Anyway you played a magnificent game and 
are entitled to the prompt and full enjoyment of 
your victory. Therefore, as the representative of 
the various institutions whose clubs compose the 

Inter-iVcademic League and who have 

united in offering the prize to the winner, I am 
delighted to place in your hands this gold medal. 
The inscriptions upon it tell the story. Keep 
it— and keep it bright. 



EESPOXSE TO THE FOEEGOIXG 

Pkofessor Dale : 

Your reference to the conduct of our 
players under the excitement of a hotly contested 
game is exceedingly gratifying, and I trust we 
may long deserve your approbation. Candor, 
however, compels me to make a confession. The 
baseball player, under the modern rules of the 
game, is not the despotic master of his own 
deportment. He is greatly ''' assisted " in his 
efforts toward self-control by various possibilities 



38 EEADY-MADE SPEECHES 

in the way of reprimands, fines, suspensions or 
expulsion. For example, it is probable that 
during the period of your activity upon the 
diamond, matters were argued out with the 
umpire, vi et armis — that is to say, the most ex- 
cited of the players of both nines seized him by 
the arms, hair, and coat-collar, and shouted their 
various threats, arguments and predictions into 
his ears in a style which has no parallel outside 
of the stock exchange. 

It made an exhilarating scene, but it no longer 
constitutes a feature of the game. Under the 
present dispensation something like this takes 
its place. A runner to first base is mistakenly 
declared out, when he knows beyond all doubt 
that he was safe. It is at a critical point of the 
contest. He springs to his feet explosively 
charged w^ith amazement, wrath, and dust. He 
holds his base until a vigorous sweep of the um- 
pire's arm leaves no room for doubt. Bursting 
with indignation, he starts in hot haste toward the 
umpire, his eyes flashing fire, and his fists doubled. 
The umpire removes his mask and waits. Those 
among the spectators who haven't seen a game 
for ten years rise to their feet in anticipation of 
what is about to happen. But it doesn't happen. 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 39 

Half way to his victim, a change comes over 
the bearing of the defrauded player. The fire in 
his eyes becomes smoke, he undoubles his fists 
and slackens his pace. He begins to notice the 
dust on his uniform and sets angrily to brushing 
it off. The umpire is still waiting. The player 
at length arrives. He looks the umpire up and 
down for a second or two and then remarks- 
well, perhaps, that there is every prospect for a 
clear day on Sanday. The umpire acquiesces in 
the prediction and resumes his mask. The player 
gives a few more vicious blows at the dust on his 
padded legs, eyes the umpire ferociously for an- 
other instant to make sure that his biting observa- 
tion has cut deep, and saunters off to his bench. 
You see, he had remembered rule fifteen, section 
three — prohibiting disorderly speech under a 
penalty just in time to save the umpire's life. 

We are glad you liked our ball playing. To 
those people who are inclined to lament the 
alleged degeneration of our educational institu- 
tions into mere schools of athletics, we would like 
to say a few words over your shoulder. We 
believe that, under a reasonably wise supervision 
by the faculty, our school and college games 
directly foster and stimulate study. These two 



40 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

necessities of life — intellectual and physical 
education— should be made to cooperate. If a 
boy is too fond of athletics he should be required 
in a measure to earn his fun by his school work. 
If, on the other hand — and it is not at all an 
imaginary case — he is too fond of his books, he 
should be made to play. 

But I have been diverting my attention from 
the matter which, as you have probably guessed, 
is really filling my mind ; keeping the best for 
the last. We gratefully accept the beautiful gift 
which the institutions composing the In- 
ter-Academic League have united in offering as the 
baseball trophy for 190- It is likely to cause 
a severe strain upon our vanity, that we be not 
unseemly glad. We thank you and the donors 
most heartily. 



VII 

UPON PRESENTING A SET OF DICKENS' 
NOVELS TO THE BEST SCHOLAR 
OF THE SCHOOL 

Scholars and Friends : 

The time has now arrived for awarding the 
prize offered by the School Board to the scholar 
having the best record in English Literature for 
the year 190- The test prescribed for determin- 
ing this competition includes, in addition to the 
general average for the school year, the presen- 
tation to the committee of an essay written 
along certain specified lines. For the present 
year the requirement is an essay of from three 
thousand to five thousand words instituting a 
comparison between the writings of either Long- 
fellow or Bryant and anj^ one of the group of 
English writers known as the lake poets. I am 
happy, at the outset, to announce that in the 
present instance, this dual test has caused no 
embarrassment. With no knowledge of its 
authorship, the committee unanimously selected 

41 



42 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

the essay entitled *' Wordsworth and Bryant. 
Their Interpretations of Nature." Fortunately 
the author of that essay was found, by a narrow 
margin, to hold the highest average in the Eng- 
lish branches for the current year. Will Mr. 
Wilson Thane please come forward ? 

Mr. Thane : 

We are all familiar with the saying that 
virtue is its own reward. While most of us, at 
one time or another, have probably assented to 
this venerable adage, there are doubtless many 
very worthy people whose experiences in life have 
led them to doubt its entire accuracy. I believe, 
however, that if there is any line of human 
thought or action as to which such an assertion 
can be made without fear of reasonable contra- 
diction, it is the study of English literature. 
To the lover of noble thoughts nobly expressed, 
what compensation can add to the satisfaction of 
such a labor. What greater delight can we 
desire than that which comes to those who are 
able familiarly to enter into intellectual com- 
panionship with the men and women who have 
builded the literature of the English tongue. 
Through their writings we are privileged to 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 43 

know them at their best. That which was dull 
and commonplace in their lives — and, surely 
there must have been some element of the paltry 
in them all — is laid aside. AVe get the best of 
their best moods. Can we ever sav so much as 
that of the friends who gather about us in our 
daily lives ? I fear not. 

And yet even this privilege of high association 
has its possible evil. The ideal is essential to all 
upward growth. The young man or woman 
who goes through life without the constant 
realization of an unattained goal, lacks the 
grandest of all incentives to high thinking and 
noble achievement. Nevertheless, most of us 
from day to day, find ourselves moving and 
breathing among the commonplace. It is out of 
the commonplace that we must build something 
better than the commonplace. It is therefore 
important that we shall be able to see and to 
know that— if you will not misunderstand the 
contradiction in terms — there is in truth no com- 
monplace. That the most sordid facts and 
events of life are filled with, or related to great 
possibilities — possibilities which we, in our haste, 
are apt wholly to overlook. 

Of all modern writers of fiction, Charles Dick- 



U READY-MADE SPEECHES 

ens, far above the rest, possessed the magic power 
of lifting the trivial, the sordid, and even the 
wicked, out of the dust and mire of the world's 
highway, and showing us its meaning in the great 
scheme of human existence. That the world 
understood and responded to his message, stands 
})roven by the abolition of imprisonment for debt, 
tlie elimination of those brutal schools which gave 
life to such a character as Squeers, and many 
other now forgotten reforms. So it has seemed 
well to our School Board that you, who have 
signall}^ shown your interest in English Literature, 
should receive from it the writings of this Great 
Commoner among the aristocracy of letters. 
Please accept these handsome volumes, not only 
for 3^our pleasure, but that 3"ou may make their 
lesson your own. To the end of your life, it will 
be profitable. 



RESPONSE TO THE FOREGOING 

Mr. Chairman : 

Beyond thanking you, and through 3^ou, 
the School Board to whose generosity we are in- 
debted for these annual prizes in English Litera- 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 45 

ture, I hardly feel myself capable of replying to 
your very suggestive remarks. Yet as I listened 
to them I became conscious of a broader, and I be- 
lieve a deeper view of life than I before possessed. 
I should be happy if I were able to make that 
new vision permanent by now expressing it in 
words. I believe that you have given the great 
English novelist nothing beyond his due. He 
gave to the English reading people a fund of en- 
tertainment such as has never come from the brain 
and pen of any single human being. But I agree 
with you that he did far more than this. Through 
his wizard-like power of fascination he touched 
the great heart of his countrymen, and bade 
them be just. 

But, perhaps, it is in the perfection of his art as 
distinguished from his love of humanity, that we 
must look for his highest power. There have 
been many men and women, both before and since 
the time of Dickens, who have striven as faith- 
fully as he for the benefit of suffering humanity. 
But where has there been one who could show us 
the weaknesses and wickedness of the poor so 
tempered and ex]3lained by their virtues and their 
sufferings that we could but see the great injustice 
of their lot ; we could but acknowledge their 



46 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

right to the remedy. He was the great missionary 
of his generation from those who suffered and 
were voiceless, to the big busy world which had 
grown blind to the evils which were in its midst, 
lam proud, sir, to receive these beautiful books. 
Never shall I peruse their magic pages without 
seeking to take to my own heart the greatest of 
their lessons. I thank you. 



VIII 



TO A PUBLIC OFFICIAL UPON HIS EETIEE- 
MENT FEOM OFFICE 

Mr. Tolford : 

With your approaching retirement from 
the oflBce of City Treasurer a number of your 
fellow citizens, without distinction of party, have 
been moved to testify their appreciation of your 
public services. They have made me their spokes- 
man, to say the few words needed to express their 
kindly sentiment toward you as a man, and 
their hearty approval of your conduct of the 
office whose responsibilities you are now about to 
relinquish. 

We are not moved to gratitude by the fact that 
you have administered your office honestly. At 
no time, not even amid the excitement of the 
campaign which preceded your election, was the 
possibility of the other alternative suggested to 
the public mind. Then, as now your perfect 
probity was taken for granted. 

You have, however, brought to the performance 
47 



48 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

of your duties a rare degree of skill, and have so 
wholly dedicated your time and ability to the 
public service that many of us feel that we would 
be doing ourselves and this community an injustice 
were we to leave our final word of approbation 
unspoken. The system established and main- 
tained by you in the fiscal affairs of this city has 
attracted the favorable attention of those con- 
cerned in the administration of similar offices in 
other cities. The official experts whose duty it 
was to investigate your books with a view to dis- 
covering defects in your method of keeping- 
accounts have made a public report of which you 
may be justly proud. In all these things you 
have done excellently well. 

Yet to many of us the thing which you refused 
to do has seemed the best of all. We refer to 
your courageous refusal to pay out a very large 
sum of public money when, by the shrewd con- 
nivance of a set of unscrupulous political adven- 
turers, the letter of the law seemed to command 
the payment. A weak man would have paid the 
money and sheltered himself behind the words of 
the law. A dishonest man would have turned 
the occasion to his own profit and compelled the 
conspirators to share their spoils with him as the 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 49 

prize of his official action. Many of us suspect 
that the latter temptation was as nearly presented 
to you as was consistent with the safety of those 
who were entrusted with the task of '^ bringing you 
over." But you were neither weak nor venal. 
You were morally sure that the warrants which 
were presented for payment — and which called 
for sums of money so large that their payment 
would materially have crippled our treasury — did 
not represent value received by the municipality. 
Therefore, at the risk of being misunderstood by 
your friends, and with the certainty of being 
abused by your enemies, you required those who 
claimed the mone}^ to resort to the courts for 
its collection. With the investigation which 
followed and its favorable result to our city, we 
are all familiar. It is in our recognition of that 
act that we feel that we are doing ourselves 
justice in honoring you. 

As a visible mark of our respect for you as a 
citizen and our gratitude to you as an official, we 
ask you to accept this silver service. The best 
that we can say of it is that the material of 
which it is constructed is at once as solid and 
genuine as the character of the man for whom it 
was wrought ; the best we can wish for it is that 



50 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

it may forever remain as untarnished as the 
reputation of that man in the city of his home. 



EESPONSE TO THE FOEEGOING 

Me. Chairman: 

You have left me no easy task. Honesty 
does not help to its performance, if, indeed, it 
does not render it the harder. It is seldom, 
upon an occasion like this, that he who is being 
honored can with perfect honesty accept the 
praise which is offered. He is apt to know him- 
self too well. Even courage— that other quality 
which you have named as mine — can at this 
moment do no more than bid me try to meet your 
eloquent words with my own commonplace 
speech. 

For the time being leaving the personal 
element out of our thoughts, I give my most 
earnest approval to the ideals presented by your- 
self. The public official who would do his whole 
duty must be able sometimes to look bej^ond the 
letter of the law to its spirit. He must, more- 
over, be the avowed partisan of the municipality 
he represents. In truth there is no city save as 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 51 

it speaks and acts through its accredited officers. 
Unless those officers are willing, in the face of 
all its foes, to stand forth and say '' we are the 
city, and we will guard its interests as we would 
guard our own " — unless that spirit prevails, the 
city is friendless. 

If, to some extent, I have stood firm when 
firmness was needed for the public good, I 
accept 3^our approval with a pride w^ich I shall 
be at no pains to conceal. It will be one of the 
pleasant memories of my life, becoming more 
precious with advancing years. I thank you 
with all my heart. 

And now, what can I say of your splendid 
gift. To one who, from boyhood has been 
accustomed to " the simple life," it is, I confess, a 
little appalling. But — it is magnificent. Per- 
haps by taking it gradually and contemplating 
the smaller pieces first, I may after w^hile gain 
sufficient courage to confront the entire services 
set forth in all its glory. Aside from this rather 
too tedious method, I can imagine but one possi- 
ble means of living up to this new standard 
which you have so unexpectedly set before me. 
If you who have bestowed this household 
treasure upon me~and who, I make no doubt, 



52 KEADY-MADE SPEECHES 

are daily accustomed to dining upon solid silver 
— will grant me the frequent pleasure of your 
presence in my home, I may yet be taught to 
rise to the occasion. I shall depend upon you. 
Again, thank you. 



IX 



PRESENTATION TO A POPULAE POLITICAL 
LEADEE 

Mr. TowNSEiS^D : 

Certain of your numerous political friends 
have asked me to say a few words to you to-night 
on their behalf. Many of them could doubtless do 
quite as well upon such an occasion as myself, 
but they are all exceedingly diffident — a well 
known characteristic of the city politician. It 
gives me great pleasure to comply with their 
request. 

We have all admired your political leadership. 
Personally I recall the time when your influence 
was bounded by the limits of your own division, 
but, even in those your salad days, your hold 
upon the confidence of your neighbors surel}^ 
foretold a larger field of action. Later, when 
you had become the recognized party leader of 
your ward, we began to see what w^as in you. 
Time after time you rose to the necessities of the 
new situation, and literally snatched victory from 

53 



54 EEADY-MADE SPEECHES 

defeat. You never acknowledged the possibility 
of failure ; you supplied hope and enthusiasm to 
those who were inclined to see nothing but fail- 
ure ; you kept the ranks of your workers un- 
broken when in some of your neighboring wards 
all was rout and demoralization. You were a 
good general. Your shrewdness, industry, and 
perseverance accomplished such results that your 
ward soon came to be known as the " Invincible 
Eighth." 

But some of us happen to know that, in 
addition to the qualities to which I have just 
referred, there has been another basis for your 
wonderful hold upon your constituents. I am not 
unaware, sir, that you dislike any such public 
reference as I am about to make, but it seems to 
me that upon this occasion at least you should 
yield to the wishes of your friends. I shall 
merely speak with candor. The great proportion 
of the voters of the eighth ward are hard-w^orking 
laborers or small mechanics. They are depend- 
ent upon their daily wages for their daily bread. 
Their wages are small, and their families are 
large. When sickness or other misfortune strikes 
them it hits them hard. 

You have been their friend. I believe I could 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 55 

recount cases by the score in which you have 
come to their rescue in the day of need. One 
man, that I knew, lost his job about the same 
time that his wife was taken down with typhoid 
fever. He was in despair, and as helpless as a 
child. By a strange co-incidence, upon the after- 
noon of the day that you heard of his misfortune, 
a doctor entered his three-roomed house unso- 
licited and took charge of the case. Later there 
came a nurse. When his wife recovered a new 
place had been found for him to go to work. 

Then there was the case of the mysterious ton 
of coal which tumbled into the empty bin of that 
bricklayer who himself, had had the ill luck to 
tumble off the second floor of the house he was 
working on. It was in the middle of an awfully 
bad winter, and according to his rating in Dunn 
or Bradstreet the poor fellow^ w^ouldn't have been 
good for a pound of rice. There come to my 
mind a dozen similar cases, but I know from the 
glint of your eye that I have gone far enough. 

It is because we know these things about you, 
and because we have learned that you are going to 
give up your residence in the old eighth ward, 
that we are not willing to let you get entirely 
out of the grip of our good will. 



56 EEADY-MADE SPEECHES 

We don't want you to forget us. So we're 
going to ask you to accept a very little present 
which represents an immense amount of friend- 
ship. It's a diamond pin put in the best shape to 
insure you good luck. Please accept and wear 
this horse shoe, — the emblem of our united senti- 
ments, and the expression of our best wishes for 
your future prosperity. 



EESPONSE TO THE FOEEGOING 

Mr. Rocap and Friends : 

It goes a little hard to stand up here and be 
called by my Sunday name, when for more than 
ten years we've been Tom and Bob and Harry to 
each other. However, that isn't the only thing 
I have to complain about. I was lured to this 
room to-night upon the pretense that, as I was 
about to leave the ward, a lot of you cubs were 
anxious for the opportunity to listen to my words 
of wisdom, and so to be prepared to look after 
party matters in the future as they have been 
looked after in the past. My head swelled with 
pride at the compliment, and I cut a good shad 
supper to get here on time. Not the slightest 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 57 

hint of what was on the carpet reached my ears. 
You fooled me all right, but it's coming back to 
you. I'm not prepared to make a speech, and so 
you'll have to take just what happens to come to 
the top. If you'd only passed me the word a day 
or two agOj I'd have been loaded for the occa- 
sion. 

Of course I'm proud of the things you've said 
about me, and the pin's a dazzler. I couldn't 
prize it more if it were the Koh-i-noor or the State 
Treasury. It has come into the family to stay. 
Come around often to have a look at it, but you 
can't borrow it for the ball. 

But, compliments aside, there are one or two 
thiugs I'd like to be able to say seriously to-night, 
rd like to show that there are tw^o sides to every- 
thing. You said something about my having 
been the friend of the men of this ward w^ho 
stood most in need of friendship. If I've done 
anything good I'm glad to know it, I wish my 
old school-teacher was alive to hear about it. But 
while you w^ere putting it on to me pretty thick 
I remembered something that happened one elec- 
tion day about five years ago. It show^s the 
other side. One of the men upon whose vote I 
had counted didn't turn up at the polls and I 



58 EEADY-MADE SPEECHES 

began to wonder whether or not he had been 
taken into camp by the other fellows. I inquired 
about him, but couldn't hear anything that cleared 
the mystery. About the middle of the afternoon, 
I announced to our watchers that I was going 
after that vote in person, and that I'd land it or 
know the reason why. I was warm. 

Well, gentlemen, what do you suppose I found ? 
The man was sick in bed, just taken down with 
a fever. When I knocked at the door I heard 
some sort of a domestic rumpus going on inside. 
Then somebody said, "come in," and I opened 
the door. Not to make too much of a story of 
it, the man was struggling to get out of bed and 
the wife was doing her best to keep him in. His 
head had gone bad, on all but one subject. He 
didn't recognize me, but, sir, he remembered that 
it was election day and that I would be expect- 
ing him to vote. I hadn't been there three sec- 
onds before I saw that it would have been mur- 
der to let him get out of the house. So I, who 
had gone there hot to drag him to the polls, put 
in a good half hour helping to keep him at 
home. 

I tell you that because I want you to remem- 
ber that where there's an ounce of friendship on 



EEADY-MADE SPEECHES 59 

the one side, there's a pound of loyalty on the 
other. Those are the kind of men you can tie to 
when you strike a hard row of political stumps. 
The small houses in the little streets are where 
you must look for your votes. Don't forget it. 
Again I thank you, and again I tell you that it's 
your own fault that you're not getting the worth 
of your money in the way of a speech. 



upon tendeeing a dinnee to a popu- 

lae you]^g bacheloe just 

eetue:^ed feom abeoad 

Mr. Hartwell : 

Upon learning that you were about to re- 
turn to America, those of your friends whom you 
now see around you determined to testify their 
pleasure at the event. After considering several 
little ideas of one sort or another we decided to 
give you a dinner. Personally, I must be allowed 
to confess that there has always been a good deal 
of uncertainty, in my mind, as to that particular 
form of expression ; but the wisdom of the Four 
Hundred is in it. We dare not rebel. When 
we read in the Social Events column of our 
evening paper that the friends of Mr. J. Algernon 
Boggs last evening ^' gave him a dinner," we be- 
come the prey to varied emotions. Being natu- 
rally of a humane disposition, we rejoice that Mr. 
Boggs's most pressing necessities have been re- 
lieved. We also hope that the thing was done 

60 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 61 

delicatel}^ — that the hungry man was invited 
within doors and served upon a table with such 
decorations, a table-cloth and napkins, instead of 
merely receiving a " hand out" at thekitchen door. 
Of course, however, these queries are idle and 
unimportant, the one salient fact being that what- 
ever the future may hold in store for Algernon in 
the way of short rations, he is all right up to the 
present time. 

In your case, my dear fellow, I beg to reassure 
you at once. You are to sit down just like the 
rest of us, and have some of each ^' until either 
yourself or the goods are exhausted." We know 
from your looks that at this moment you w^ould 
rather eat than talk— possibly would rather eat 
than listen. Don't be afraid of losing your ap- 
petite. You'll be just as hungry when we sit 
down to the table as you are now. As Shake- 
speare might have said " hunger grows upon that 
upon which it does not feed." 

It has been a long time since we saw you last, 
but we have not wholly lost sight of you even in 
your travels. Through the public press we were 
informed in May, for example, that you were en- 
joying yourself by tobogganing down the Matter- 
horn ; in June, upon equally good authority, we 



62 EEADY-MADE SPEECHES 

know that you swam the Hellespont in evening 
dress ; in July you were gunning for the Phoenix 
among the ashes of Vesuvius. And yet, sir, we 
realize that all these things, when compared with 
another adventure which we are informed you 
have in early contemplation, are but most trivial. 
We have been told that your present return to 
3^our native land is but preparatory to setting out 
upon another journey — a journey filled, we have 
been taught to believe, with many a danger and 
ending only with life itself. If that be true, if 
you have indeed taken passage to the land of the 
Benedicts, we are here to wish you joy. May you 
and she together weather every storm, and silence 
every squall 

All of which, my dear Tom, means that we 
haven't much to say, we're all everlastingly glad 
to see you. We're here just to shake your hand, 
and test the condition of your conscience through 
the medium of your appetite. 



EESPONSE TO THE FOEEGOING 

Friends, Fellows and Countrymen : 

Yes, my dear Ford, if you insist upon a 
plain answer to your question, I confess that I 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 63 

would rather eat than make a speech ; especially 
when as in the present case, I have already been 
led within sight — and smell — of the promised 
land. Surely that is the odor of roast duck — 
possibly, even, of canvas-back — which wooes my 
nostrils and fascinates my imagination. Talk of 
the Phoenix ! Why the two birds oughtn't to be 
mentioned in the same week. 

No, I can't make a speech — a fact which you 
very well knew when you arranged this demon- 
stration. And yet, friends, there are some things 
which, upon an occasion like this, seem to say 
themselves without much regard to the incapacity 
of the individual through w^hom they speak. 

In the first place I had a good time. Though 
1 did not swim the Hellespont, I did gaze in rap- 
ture out across the bay of Naples. I ascended 
Mont Blanc — with my eyes. I sailed down the 
Ehine. In Paris, I spent days in the galleries, 
giving hints to the old masters — or anybody else 
who would listen. It was great ! Why you can 
ask me anything you happen to want to know 
about art now, and I'll simply be delighted to put 
you right. Then there's the Latin Quarter ! If 
you go to Paris — I mean, when you go to Paris— 
don't forget to have a Welsh Rabbit at the White 



64 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

Owl. You'll not soon forget it, after youVe 
had it. 

But, of course, when, a minute since, I said that 
there were some things which were apt to say 
themselves upon an occasion like the present I 
was not thinking of Latin Quarters or Welsh 
Owls — I mean Rabbits. For the space of two 
minutes now, you may if you can take me seri- 
ously. It would be impossible for me now and 
here to give you any, even the most remote and 
inadequate account of my travels. For that fact 
you may be duly thankful. Yet there is one im- 
pression upon my mind which 1 should like above 
all other things to give to you before time shall 
have faded its colors or dimmed its outlines. 

I have been away for nearly two years and my 
time has been so filled with new experiences that, 
save on one or two unusual occasions I was not 
conscious of homesickness. I came home in a 
foreign vessel filled with pleasant people who did 
all those things to which modern sea travelers 
resort for entertainment, and to kill time. We 
had a pleasant trip, but we reached New York on 
a foggy morning. I was standing on deck as we 
slowly felt our way up the lower bay. 

Suddenly, to my left, there came a little lifting 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 65 

of the fog and into this field of vision there came 
the bow of an American liner. Above her floated 
a piece of oblong bunting. I hadn't seen it for 
nearly two years. I don't believe that I am any 
more fully loaded with patriotism than the aver- 
age young fellow whose mind has been accus- 
tomed to run a good deal on his own pleasure, 
and not at all on politics. I have no explanation 
to make, but in an instant, as the breeze spread 
full before me the glorious stars and stripes, 
there was a lump in my throat and tears were 
running down my cheeks. With the sight of the 
old flag, everything had come to me at once — a 
sense of home, that was somehow like the smile 
of my mother. I was amazed. I am amazed yet ; 
but I want to tell you, boys, there is something 
in this country of ours which takes hold of us, 
and doesn't let go. 

In looking back over the last two years, I 
honestly believe I have now told you the most 
vivid experience of my travels. As to the rumor 
that I am about to embark upon the sea of 
matrimony, at this time I can say no more than 
that the report has been greatly exaggerated. 
However— the lady may yet relent. I thank 
you all very heartily for this splendid welcome. 



XI 

PEESENTATION BY PLAYEES TO THE 
MANAGEE OF A BASEBALL CLUB 

Mr. Manager: 

The last ball has been pitched for the 
season of 190-, and we, the players, are about to 
disappear from public view until the next arrival 
of the robins. Before setting out for Florence, 
Monte Carlo, Carlsbad, Venice or Camden to 
enjoy our summer's accumulated wealth, the 
other members of the club have asked me to say 
a few words to you expressive of our apprecia- 
tion of our feeling toward yourself. > We haven't 
played the best ball ever seen, and we haven't 
captured all the honors in sight. We do know, 
however, that, from start to finish, we have played 
a good straight game, and that we have played it 
with all our heart. ^ Failing of the championship, 
we have nevertheless brought the - — — Ball 
Club into the company of the three best in the race. 
We are sorry we didn't reach the top, but we 
are proud to have done as well as we have. 

66 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 67 

We say this not in praise of ourselves, but be- 
cause we believe that the result, so far as it has 
been successful, is largely due to you. I'm going 
to try to tell you what I mean by that. The 
average baseball player is not exactly what you 
might call a " sensitive plant." He is used to 
perfect frankness in the line of adverse criticism. 
He hears it from the bleachers every time he 
vigorously does nothing three times with his bat, 
or misses an easy fly — easy to the man on the 
bleachers. He expects it, and sheds no tears. If 
he listens, too, he can catch a good deal of per- 
fectly candid advice from the grand stand — 
recommending him to use a coal shovel instead 
of a bat, or to try the undertaker's profession, as 
being better adapted to his rate of locomotion. 
It's all in his day's work, and he doesn't mind 
it. 

But the manager is a different and more serious 
proposition. It isn't just because he connects 
with the club treasury either, although that is an 
incident which it isn't easy to lose sight of. But 
the manager knows what ball playing means. 
He probably once did something of the sort him= 
self. When he indulges in sarcasm or takes a 
player aside for a two minutes' heart to heart 



6S READY^^VIADE SPEECHES 

conversation it naturally stays in 
memory for the rest of the game. The manager 
can do a whole lot of good and a whole lot of 
harm. If a player does his best— particularly if 
he's one of the sort who always does his best — 
nothing in the world can break him up like a 
manager's call-down after a streak of bad luck. 
He may not always show it, but nine times out 
of ten it leaves a bruise that liniment can't cure. 
It doesn't leave him in good shape to face the 
next hard liner that comes his way. It cools down 
his steam, and he can't force it up just by think- 
ing of his salary. 

Now I've said all this because it shows just 
what sort a manager we don't believe you are. 
We've had a pretty hard fight, and we've made 
the average number of flukes on the bases and in 
the field, but there isn't a man in the club who's 
nursing a grudge. You've said some pretty plain 
things to all of us, but you've said them in a way 
that told us that you were trying to get good 
ball, and not that you wanted to make things 
hot for any particular player. We'v^e deserved 
what you've said, and, when we got our breath, 
we always knew that you were right. You 
haven't followed the bleachers, nor the grand 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 69 

stand, nor the club reporter who has to make 
his column spicy, even if it isn't true. You've 
been square. 

I guess that's all I have to say, except to ask 
you to hang this trifle on your watch chain in 
memory of the good will of the boys who did the 

batting and fielding for the — ■ Club during 

the season of 190-. 



RESPONSE TO THE FOREGOING 



Mk. Garvon and Players of the 
Club: 



Let me confess at the outset that I*am not 
taken quite so much by surprise at this affair as 
you may imagine. It is true that, until I came 
into this room twenty minutes ago, and found 
you all on deck, I hadn't the faintest suspicion 
that I was about to be " stood up and deco- 
rated." But as to the feeling that suggested the 
thing to you and made it worth doing; there 
hasn't been much of a secret about it for a good 
many moons. There isn't a man among you who 
hasn't shown me that he was my friend six 
different ways. If I've been good natured to 



70 EEADY-MADE SPEECHES 

you it's been largely because I couldn't shut my 
eyes to the fact that each one of you has had the 
success of the club just as much at heart as I had 
myself. 

But, come to think of it, there is another reason 
for the things I've said or left unsaid during the 
games, and your reference to the influence of the 
manager's attitude upon his players brings it very 
clearly back to my memory. I'm going to tell 
you about it. 

Your suggestion that most managers, at one 
time or another, have themselves done some- 
thing in the line of actual play, is probably 
correct. At any rate it is true as to myself. 
There "are still several persons living who wit- 
nessed my performances at short stop or upon 
second base. I have done what I could to make 
life easy for them, and they, in turn, have prom- 
ised never to reveal my past. I may say, how- 
ever, that I was a poor but honest player. 

One day it was my luck to get all the lime- 
light there was in the lamp. I went to the bat 
with a tied score and two men on bases. I was 
ordered to sacrifice. I did. I sacrificed mj'-self 
and both the other men. If I ever made an 
honest effort in my life^ I made it upon that 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 71 

occasion and with that awful result. Of course 
there was a riot. Discipline then was not as good 
as it is now — and you all know what sometimes 
happens even now. There was a shower of vitu- 
peration which, so far as I was concerned, obscured 
the sun. I knew I hadn't a friend in the world, 
and that each one of fifteen hundred able bodied 
men would have been glad to throw a brick at 
me. By the time I reached the bench I felt that, 
life for me, was an everlasting failure. As I 
look back at that moment now, I can't help feel- 
ing awfully sorry for myself. 

In a hazy sort of a way I saw the manager leave 
the bench and come out to meet me. There was 
vengeance in his stride, and the crowd stood 
up to witness my reception. The next thing I 
knew he was laughing, and his hand was on my 
arm. What he said was, '^ Old man, that happens 
to every ball player just once in seven years. 
You've had your medicine and you're all right." 

If any of you can't guess how I felt as I heard 
those words, it's of no earthly use for me to try 
to explain. It must have put tremendous strain 
on his inside works to pull up at that rate, but — 
it was good business. He knew — God knows 
how he guessed it— that I had done my best. 



72 READY-MADE SPEPXHES 

I never forgot the experience, and when, a good 
many years later, I undertook to manage a club 
myself, I practiced his play on my own account. 
It's based on the principle that no man can do 
better than his best, so that all a manager can do 
is to help him to do his best. If his best isn't 
good enough, of course, he must give way to 
somebody else ; but the only way to give him a 
fair trial is to let him know that while he's square 
you are with him, no matter what comes from the 
bleachers or the grand stand. 

So, if you please, I'm going to wear this beauti- 
ful watch charm not only in memory of your- 
selves, but of the old-time manager — dead now 
these dozen years — who taught me the trick. 
Thank you, and good luck to you alL 



XII 

AT A DINNER IN HONOR OF AN OLD FRIEND 
AFTER YEARS OF ABSENCE 

Ladies and Gentlemen : 

If, somewhat earlier in tlie evening, some 
curious person bad peeped in upon this assemblage 
through the crack of the door, he might perhaps 
have been puzzled by the evidence of two very 
conflicting conditions. A glance at his w^atch must 
have told him that our dinner was rather late in 
being served, while a glance at our faces would 
have assured him that, one and all, we were in 
the very best of spirits. If he were a philosopher 
or a Sherlock Holmes hemight have deduced there- 
from the fact that we had been drawn together 
by some attraction far more enduring and potent 
than the anticipation of even so excellent a dinner 
as has since been placed before us. 

He would have been right. I trust and believe 
that each of us has brought to this board that 
admirable accompaniment of a clear conscience, 
a good appetite. But, friends, I know that each of 

73 



74 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

us has brought, or more correctly, has been 
brought by something infinitely better. Tender 
memories of bygone years, lingering echoes of 
kindly words, visions of scenes which shall endure 
while life remains — these, and the knowledge that 
he who had been part and parcel of them all would 
be among us to-night— it was these that had 
brought us together ; it was these which made us 
forget to be impatient at the feast delayed. 

For years he had been as one who was lost, and 
now — his hair a little silvered here and there, it 
is true, and his step a trifle more sedate than of 
old, but with all the dear old friendliness of look 
and glance and touch — he is with us. Yes, our 
visitor without the door was correct. What 
matters the dinner to us, save as it once more 
brings the breaking of bread with our guest. At 
best it was but the condiment to the feast of 
friendship. 

But why should I seek to express that which I 
can by no means say, and which, indeed, there 
is no need of saying. In your own hearts is 
all I have been striving to utter. Even the 
name! As I look about me and recall the ties 
which in years gone by, bound you, each and all to 
the gentleman who now sits by my side, I feel that 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 

it would be little short of an impertinence 
I to yield to the usual form upon such occa .; 
and pretend to introduce him to his life I -.r: 
friends. Henry Morgan is with us, and we a 
the sound of his voice as children await ihe 
happenings of Christmas eve. 



EESPONSE TO THE FOEEGOIKG 

Mr. Chairman, and Friends : 

What can I say ? What could any one 
say in reply to such a greeting ? For one brief 
moment I longed most heartily to be that im- 
agined visitor safe behind the door. Not that I 
would escape your kindness. Friendship, even 
in its common daily forms is something too 
precious to be thrown away, and I am now upon 
that slope of life's journey w^hen one — be he ever 
so cynical— longs more and more for the knowl- 
edge that his life still has some meaning in the 
lives of others. Still, had I been present and yet 
absent — could I have drunk in each kindly word, 
and yet have been under no compulsion to check 
the responsive emotion ^vhich each word brought 
—there would, I confess, have been a touch of 



76 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

luxury which is not to be enjoyed while all your 
eyes seek mine. 

What a flood of memories has been loosed by 
the words of our friend. Memories mellowed 
and softened by the touch of time. Memories 
some of them — too many of them, if we measure 
by the yearnings of the human heart — leading 
us beyond the horizon of our earthly vision. 
Memories of sorrow, touched into beauty by the 
visions of sympathy and helpfulness which cluster 
around them. Visions of mirth which, in the 
years between, have done their part to prove to 
me that a man is no older than he feels and, so 
once and again, have gently turned my face 
youthward. 

But now, dear friends, I must ask one more 
favor at your hands. In this moment of our 
first reunion, as I gaze in the old familiar faces 
— changed, and yet the same — my brain and lips 
refuse to perform their allotted task. I find 
that, do what I may, for to-night at least, the 
heart alone must dominate my will. I need not 
— cannot — tell you how glad I am to be among 
you. 



XIII 

AT THE OPENING OF A MEETING 
OF PHYSICIANS 

Gentlemen of the Medical Profession : 

It is my very pleasant duty to say to you 
the few words of welcome which seem appro- 
priate before we turn our thoughts to the more 
serious purposes which have brought us together. 
I am heartily glad to be with and of you. It is 
just such meetings as this which insure to our pro- 
fession its healthy life and vigorous growth. I 
do not refer to its numerical increase ; and still 
less have I in mind its pecuniary rewards, al- 
though these, let us hope, keep step with its 
scientific advance. 

It is this frequent coming together of scores of 
earnest men — each with his individual experi- 
ences, but all with a single engrossing purpose— 
which keeps our beloved science abreast of the 
times and ever ready for the next forward step. 
The full and candid presentation of our varied 
experiences—our mistakes and failures, no less 

77 



78 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

than our successes — makes possible intelligent 
comparison, stimulates suggestion and leads to 
discussion out of which each of us surely may 
gather somewhat of profit. 

Gentlemen, if in so brief and ephemeral an ad- 
dress as this it is proper that I introduce a word 
or two of advice, it shall be this. I say it both 
in the spirit of warning and encouragement. 
Let us, in our intercourse with each other, ever 
bear in mind the fact that the medical science, 
grand as have been its accomplishments, is still 
in a great measure experimental. Not one of 
you, if he shall run back over our literature of 
the last quarter of a century, but will confess 
that my statement as applied to that past period, 
is undeniably true. The greater light which 
twenty-five years of study and experience has 
thrown upon the theories and methods of that 
day has rendered many theories and practices 
antiquated which then seemed to have taken 
their places among the body of enduring medical 
knowledge. In twenty-five years more the same 
must be said of many of the theories and methods 
which now we are inclined to accept as beyond 
question. While we are awaiting these inevita- 
ble corrections of time, let us not fail to realize 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 79 

the law of growth. Let us hold our knowledge, 
but not with our eyes shut. Let us, now and 
here, recognize the possibility that many things 
which now bear the label of verity may yet have 
to be relabeled, and perhaps thrown aside. 
Many more will, in time, prove to be but half 
truths, which, as we all know, are sometimes 
more dangerous than falsehoods. Let us, then, 
meet each other and all the world, with minds 
open to the consideration of every theory which 
bears upon it the stamp of honest conviction, 
and which promises the amelioration of the 
human race. Let neither fear nor prejudice 
stand between ourselves and the cominglight. 

And yet almost on the instant of their utter- 
ance, I must seem, I fear, to contradict my own 
words. When I say, " be open to the new light," 
I do not by any means intend to advise j^ou to 
hold or use your present knowledge dubiously. 
To do that — to permit your mind to waste itself 
in doubt or to act feebly because perchance the 
next fifty, twenty, or even five years may reveal 
a more efficient treatment than is now at your 
command— would be the act of a coward. For 
the scientific revelations of the next five years 
you are not responsible ; for the efficient use of 



80 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

the knowledge now at the command of your pro- 
fession, you assuredly are. In truth there is no 
conflict between my two lessons. In the actual 
practice of your profession use intelligently and 
fearlessly the knowledge which the world of to- 
day has placed at your command. But in your 
moments of reflection, in the study of our litera- 
ture, and in your intercourse with your brethren 
— especially upon such occasions as this — remem- 
ber always that there are new truths, and new 
sides to old truths, and that the highest obliga- 
tions of the physician command him to receive 
them, test them, and if they prove worthy, use 
them without regard to any prejudice or opinion 
Avhich he may have held a year, a day, or an 
hour ago. Gentlemen, I wish you a most pleas- 
ant and profitable session. 



XIV 

TO THE GRADUATING CLASS OP A YOUNG 
LADIES^ SEMINARY 

Young Ladies : 

You have now completed the course of 
study prescribed by the Rosedale Seminary, and 
are about to receive your diplomas of graduation. 
That you have made admirable use of your op- 
portunities, and that those opportunities have 

been excellent, are facts established most satis- 

ft 

factorily by the reports of your teachers and the 
very interesting glimpses of the results with 
which we have been favored this evening. You 
may well be proud of your work. 

Into the lives of most of us, at one time or an- 
other, there come certain culminating experiences 
the memories of which endure to the end of our 
days. One such experience comes when a young- 
man or woman, having, as we carelessl}'^ phrase it, 
" finished " his or her education, stands for a 
moment with bated breath and kindling imagina- 

81 



82 EEADY-MADE SPEECHES 

tion at the unlocked door of the future. What 
great new experiences lie beyond that mysterious 
portal ? Neither you, nor I, nor any man can 
answer that question. Yet some things, I be- 
lieve, may fairly — and I hope profitably — be said 
at this time as to that unknown future. 

To a very great extent it is to be what you 
make it. That thought has often been expressed 
before, and yet it needs to be uttered again and 
again until it shall have ceased to be a mere 
piece of declamation, and be recognized for what 
it is— a profound and important truth. It does 
not mean that either you or I can disregard the 
manifest limitations of nature or environment. 
We cannot do all things. There is no reason why 
we should seek to do all things. But this is also 
true. Taken in the right spirit, many things 
which at first appear to be limitations, in the end 
prove to be inspirations to the exertion of our 
natural powers — inspirations without which those 
powers might never be revealed even to our- 
selves. Enter your new life, then, in the spirit 
of one who expects difficulties, and intends to 
surmount them. It is not true that life is a bat- 
tle in which the success of one must inevitably be 
the disaster of another. But it is true that, if it 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 83 

is to be anything more dignified than mere ani- 
mal existence, life must have its strenuous side. 

Holding such a view, my first impulse was to 
proffer to you such counsel as might the better 
equip you for the trials which I believe — which, 
in all good will, I hope — may lie before you. 
But reflection convinces me that, in the very few 
moments which are mine, it would be quite im- 
possible to lay down any general maxims of con- 
duct which could greatly serve you in the future. 
I have decided, therefore, to content myself with 
a single suggestion. I call it a suggestion be- 
cause, while it may take the form of an appeal, 
its real value to yourselves must depend upon 
whether or not your own observations shall here- 
after confirm the significance of my words. 

It has been my fortune to meet many women 
whose natural endowments are good — some of 
them, indeed, of rather exceptional mental pow- 
ers — whose whole means of intellectual activity 
have been reduced to the theatre, the card table, 
and the reading of highly sensational novels. I 
cannot condemn those forms of entertainment. 
Personally I happen to believe in the play, the 
novel and the games. As the means of occasional 
diversion they are admirable, but~they are not 



84 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

the whole of life. Furthermore — and it is this 
fact which justifies us in taking the subject se- 
riously — they do not hold within themselves the 
power very long to make life tolerable. They 
are to the adult very much what toys are to grow- 
ing children. Taken alone they cannot long sup- 
ply the human brain with the material for nor' 
mal life and growth. As the occasional varia- 
tion from the more serious things of life they are 
immensely valuable ; but, as the substitute for 
those more serious things, they are fearfully in- 
adequate. And this brings me to my appeal. 

As you value your earthly happiness ; as you 
appreciate and hope to retain the powers of en- 
joyment and usefulness with which nature has 
blessed you, beware the vacant mind ! Hold fast 
to the knowledge, and to the capacity for acquir- 
ing more knowledge which now is yours. Do 
not take life solemnly, but do take it seriously. 
Cultivate your capacity for substantial reading, 
for conversation, and for thinking. Enjoy your 
play and your games fully and without reserva- 
tion, but do not let them usurp the place which 
they cannot fill. Cultivate those habits of thought 
which will fit you, so far as circumstances may 
require, for self-companionship. Believe me,, the 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 85 

condition of that person whose happiness forever 
depends upon some artificial means of escaping 
from herself is desperate. Beware the vacant 
mind ! 

Am I conjuring up an imaginary danger? If 
3^ou will pardon a not very pleasant illustration, 
I believe I can answer your doubts so fully that 
they will be doubts no longer. The fact is, the 
causes and effects of what I have called the " va- 
cant mind " have been the subject of careful sci- 
entific study for many generations. What has 
been the result ? Let me tell you. The severest 
punishment known to modern penology and now 
tolerated by civilized nations consists in the arti- 
ficial production of the vacant mind in the con- 
demned criminal. In the opinion of the public 
the taking of life doubtless still appears to be the 
summit of human punishment. But death, as a 
punishment, is a matter of a few seconds, with 
but the minimum of suffering. Solitary confine- 
ment under such conditions as to deprive the 
mind of the prisoner of the material for thought 
is by far more barbarous. The brain, robbed of 
the means of healthy activity, preys upon itself. 
The nervous system gives way, imagination fills 
the mind with morbid forebodings; gloom, de- 



86 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

spair, and if the condition be long continued, in- 
sanity itself are the all but inevitable results. 
That, in its ultimate form, is the " vacant mind." 

Now, if you please, turn my warning into a 
suggestion. As opportunity may offer, compare 
the lives of those women who find their whole 
enjoyment in the flashlight of intermittent ex- 
citement with the condition of those who take 
life with rational seriousness. Decide, each for 
yourself, whether or not I have made a mistake ; 
whether or not that human being who neglects 
the substantial things of the mind is not, in 
greater or less measure, self-inflicting the punish- 
ment which society reserves for its worst crimi- 
nals. The fact is that, inside or out of prison 
walls, the brain of an intelligent man or woman 
cannot long occupy itself in traveling in a trivial 
and familiar circle, and if it has been so crippled 
as to be incapable of a wider range, it begins the 
slow process of its own annihilation. 

Why, you are doubtless asking, have I pre- 
sented these thoughts to a class of young women 
whose present condition is certainly a long way 
removed from those of the vacant mind ? It is 
that you may the more fully appreciate the value 
of the knowledge already acquired, and may by 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 87 

no means adopt the too common idea that your 
education is "finished." The acquisition of 
knowledge is unimportant compared with its use. 
Your education has only just begun, and now^, if 
ever, is the time for kindly counsel. 

I have said these things to you, rather than to 
a class of young men, because the general condi- 
tions of masculine life save the young man from 
this particular form of danger. The activities of 
business are likely to save him from the evils of 
mental idleness. For this, how^ever, you need 
feel no touch of unfairness. He has ample dan- 
gers of his ow^n. 

What I have said, I have said with the sincerest 
belief in its truth, but with no wish to cast even 
the shadow of a cloud over this happiest of mo- 
ments. 



XV 

AT THE DEDICATION OF A PUBLIC 
SCHOOLHOUSE 

Ladies and Gentlemen : 

We have come together to-day for no new 
purpose. From the dawn of historical civilization 
to the present time it has been the custom of 
mankind to perform the act for which we have 
now assembled. Nor, if we pause a moment for 
reflection, is this fact at all difficult of explana- 
tion. There is something about such an occasion 
as this which must have made its appeal to prim- 
itive man just as it does to us to-day. Nothing 
among all the works of his hand was so sugges- 
tive of permanency and power as the building 
erected, not for his own use alone, but for the 
service of generations of beings yet unborn. Its 
life and work was to extend far beyond the lives 
of those who witnessed its creation, and the mys- 
tery of the remote and invisible was about its 
fate. So it has always been that when months 
or years of patient labor have brought into the 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 89 

world, as it were, the great new being of stone 
or brick whose destiny is to serve posterity, the 
people have gathered within its walls and with 
solemn rites have sent it forth upon its mission. 

But how vast the difference between those an- 
cient ceremonies and our own. Then, with bar- 
barous sacrifice intended to propitiate and flatter 
one or other of their many gods, they devoted their 
building forever to the service of that particular 
deity. With childish awe, from that time forth, 
they looked upon it as peculiarly the home of him 
to whom they had thus devoted it. There he 
must be sought, and there from time to time he 
must be flattered and kept from ev^er threatening 
wrath by new gifts and further sacrifices. He 
would be a bold man who would declare that 
even in our generation this crude conception of 
deity has been wholly outgrown. There are still 
many who believe that by special acts and elo- 
quent personal pleas they may gain their coveted 
advantages over their fellows, and that even the 
laws of nature may be checked or modified on 
their behalf. But surely the great mind of the 
American people has passed beyond this condi- 
tion, now and forever. 

And yet, here and now, under the beneficence 



90 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

of the great Ruler of all human destiny, may we 
not likewise dedicate this beautiful building to 
the uses of one of our own gods ? For be it re- 
membered that while we have abandoned the 
worship of Zeus and Apollo, of Venus and Mars, 
we have nevertheless, in this free land, discovered 
new gods of our own. It is true that we do not 
worship them in trembling voice and upon bended 
knee ; that the offerings which we bring to them 
are not the barbarous sacrifices of the olden time; 
that we do not always personify them in our 
speech, and that in our daily thoughts of them 
there mingles much of the commonplace. Never- 
theless, I dare to assert that our worship of them 
is as sincere, and a thousand times more effectual 
than was the worship of old. Instead of bowing 
in abject and blind appeal, we bring to them the 
means of eternal life and ever expanding power. 
We are giving them reality. As did that mar= 
velous sculptor of Cyprus, we have evolved life in 
the ancient images of beauty, and virtue, and 
love. 

Why, then, may we not follow those ancient 
rites in the light of these, our modern years ? I 
think we shall find it no difficult task. For the 
Greeks, Athena, and for the Romans, Minerva ; 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 91 

these were their goddesses of wisdom. We have 
changed the names and vitalized the marble 
statues. Let us now and here dedicate this tem- 
ple of learning to the Spirit of American Intelli- 
gence. Her name may be less euphonious than 
that of the Greeks and Romans ; but never mind. 
Where on all the face of this great round world ; 
w^iere, even in the realm of the imagination, 
moves there such a glorious and illimitable 
power. Where else, than in her ever expanding 
brain, dwells there such magnificent possibili- 
ties for the race of man ? Her hand now sways 
the destiny of a great nation, and shall be all- 
patent in the destiny of many a nation yet to be. 
Her eye pierces the far distant future, and 
through the mist of centuries, sees a world re- 
deemed by her power from the cruel grasp of ig- 
norance and superstition. To her, let us now 
dedicate the work of our hands, and as to her we 
confidingly entrust the fate of our posterity. 






XVI 

UPON THE DEDICATION OF A FLAG POLE 
UPON PUBLIC SCHOOL GEOUNDS 

Friends, Fellow Citizens and, Most Im- 
portant OF ALL, Children of the 
Martinsburg Public School : 

Why do we stand here to-day with heads 
uncovered and hearts thrilled by the knowledge 
that presently we are to unfurl to the summer 
breeze one more American^ flag? Even the 
youngest of you has beheld a hundred just such 
banners. Why then, as I gaze about me into 
your expectant faces, do my eyes involuntarily 
catch somewhat of the Are which flashes in your 
own ? It is only a piece of bright colored cloth 
— this flag of which you make so much — itself the 
patchwork of a dozen smaller and yet more in- 
significant fabrics. Why, then, does it interest 
you ? And why do I, whose blood is no longer 
young and feverish,— why do even I find it not 
quite easy to speak of this flag as a bit of cloth, 
'' and nothing more '^ ? 

92 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 93 

If I know my own heart and yours, they are 
beating high at this moment because to you and 
me the American flag is, and forever must be 
something very different and more precious than 
a bit of red, white, and blue cloth. It is the vis- 
ible emblem of a thousand things we revere and 
love, and of ten thousand things for which we 
reverently hope in the future. Let me, so far as I 
may in the brief moment which I may rightly 
occupy, suggest a few of these things. 

First and foremost, wherever this flag waves in 
sovereignty it proclaims the equality of all men 
before the law. Beneath its shadow neither 
judge nor jury must falter nor turn back in judg- 
ment by reason of the poverty or the wealth, the 
race or the religion, the ignorance or the wisdom 
of him who comes before it demanding his rights. 
All are equal in the halls of justice. To you 
these words convey but a commonplace thought 
with which your minds have always been famil- 
iar, and yet it required centuries upon centuries 
to produce a flag which stood for that. 

But it stands not alone for human equality. 
It symbolizes the most splendid and enduring 
gift which any nation ever bestowed upon her 
people. All over its broad domain it assures to 



94 EEADY-MADE SPEECHES 

every child — the child of the hovel not less than 
the child of the palace— the right to make the 
most of life ; the right to take, each for himself, 
but all at the public expense, so much as he will of 
the world's rich store of wisdom. Do not forget 
that until the coming of the flag no one had so 
much as dared to dream of this, the greatest of 
national blessings — the blessing which makes it 
peculiarly appropriate that we should be here to- 
day, our brains filled with these memories and 
our hearts stirred by these emotions— the in- 
estimable blessing of our free public schools. 

Until then, schools had been private institu- 
tions controlled either by individuals or by the 
greater religious denominations. That learning 
should be made the free and common birthright 
of every child, was as far from popular expecta- 
tion as that every child should be clothed and 
fed at the public expense. As you grow older it 
is possible that, now and again, you may hear of 
some act done in the name and under the power 
of this flag which, it may seem to you, had better 
have been left undone. It will be your duty, so 
far as in you lies, to keep its stars and stripes 
unsoiled of evil, and I bid you be courageous in 
that guardianship. But if ever you shall find 



EEADY-MADE SPEECHES 95 

yourself in doubt as to whether after all, it is 
worthy of your love and strife, I bid you, in that 
moment of doubt, recall the fact that it stands 
for the free education of all the common people ; 
that it brought that blessing into the world and 
has guarded it with a sleepless jealousy, until at 
last it has become so much a commonplace in 
your lives and mine that we accept it as a part 
of the air we breathe. Eesist to the utmost 
those who would divert the old flag to base and 
selfish uses, but never, never lose faith in the flag 
itself. 

If time permitted I would be tempted to lead 
your imagination down the vista of the centuries 
until together we might catch a gleam of those 
other things— as yet no more substantial than a 
dream — which I verily believe await the coming 
of this flag. We, the American people, are en- 
gaged in the boldest experiment in human gov- 
ernment which can be found upon the records of 
all the ages — an experiment based upon the idea 
that a great people, drawn together from all the 
races of the earth, sharing but one thought in com- 
mon — the love of liberty— is potentially capable of 
self-government. We have announced to the still 
astonished world that we have no need of king 



96 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

or tzar or emperor ; that from time to time we 
can choose such rulers as we desire from the 
midst of our common people ; that we will have 
no privileged classes, save as the privileges may 
serve the public cause. In short, we have risked 
our national existence upon the power of our 
people to govern themselves. 

So, under this ever glorious symbol, our great 
new nation has begun her majestic progress down 
the ages. What may be the end, no eye can see. 
But we have infinite faith. We believe in the 
essential virtue and wisdom of a young nation 
which already has given to the world a Wash- 
ington, a Franklin, and a Lincoln. Reverently, 
we believe in ourselves, and fear no future. So 
once again, with cheers and thanksgiving, we 
will fling ^' Old Glory " grandly to the breeze. 



XVII 

ADDEESS TO A MINISTBE ABOUT TO 
DEPAET FOE EUEOPE 

Dear Mr. Heber : 

It is with a mingling of pleasure and re- 
gret that we, your friends and parishioners, have 
heard that you have decided it is necessary 
you should, for several months at least, absent 
yourself from our midst. We wholly concur in 
your judgment in asking, and in the judgment of 
our church authorities in granting this leave of 
absence. We, of course, regret the causes which 
have made it necessary. 

At the request of a large number of your peo- 
ple I shall take this occasion to say a few words 
for which there seems to be no place in the or- 
dinary intercourse of our church life. It is only 
when some such event as this breaks the usual 
routine, that you would have the patience to 
listen, or we the hardihood to speak. 

We wish you to bear away with you the 
97 



98 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

knowledge that^ one and all, we shall miss you. 
Like most good things in life, so long as they are 
easily within our reach, we accept them much as 
a matter of course. It is only when we are 
about to lose them that we awaken to their full 
signijBcance in our own lives. For years, now, 
we have been accustomed to your presence in 
our pulpit and by our firesides, to your familiar 
voice in our ears, and to your earnest invocation 
in our hearts, until all those things have become 
a part of our every-day experiences. Now, 
when circumstances have arisen which all at 
once cut us off from these dear privileges, we 
know that we have something to say. 

We shall miss you as a friend. Not one of us 
but could tell — were it not for your own modesty 
— of many an unexpected but very welcome 
kindness at your hands. There have been many 
such acts, many more of them than you could 
possibly recall ; but none of them have been lost. 
While it is not becoming that either you or we 
should list and appraise such deeds as are now in 
my mind, it is well for all of us to realize that in 
the divine economy of the universe every gentle 
word and friendly deed enters both into the mind 
of him who gives and of him who receives. So 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 99 

we have come to love you as a friend, and are 
glad to look you in the eyes and tell you so. 

Of the place occupied by you in this commu- 
nity as a minister of the gospel— of your devotion 
to those great fundamental principles which al- 
ways and everywhere make for righteousness — I 
cannot, in these few moments begin to speak. 
Your work has written your life in characters far 
more legible than any which I have the power to 
reproduce. Not only to us, but to all who know 
you, you stand as the type of the manly, human. 
Christian minister, devoted to the cause of the 
Master, but working as He worked, earnestly 
among and with the great common people — real- 
izing that surely salvation must begin right here 
amid the dust and turmoil of our busy, every-day, 
commonplace lives. 

But I have said enough, not to express a tithe 
of the emotion which is in our hearts, but to hint 
at what that emotion is. You must guess much 
which I cannot express. There is, however, one 
thing more which I have been bidden to say. 
You are going abroad, and many of us have an 
earnest wish to share, in such degree as we may, 
in the pleasures of your travels. We cannot be 
with you in body, but we must nevertheless beal- 



100 EEADY-MADE SPEECHES 

lowed some part in your joys. We have put to- 
gether a small purse which must be our most 
inadequate representative, and which I beg you 
to accept in remembrance of our affection and 
ourselves. In doing this, we are not wholly with- 
out selfishness. We can think of no other way 
by which we can extract so much pleasure from 
so slight an investment. Do us the kindness, 
therefore, to accept it in the same friendly spirit 
in which it is offered. 

With it accept, also, our sincerest wishes for 
your safe and happy journey, the complete res- 
toration of your health, and then— your return to 
our midst. 



EESPONSE TO THE FOEEGOING 

Mr. Brown, and very dear Friends : 

While I have been listening to your words 
of affection my own mind has propounded a 
strange question. Why is it, to speak to you 
with perfect frankness, that your very affection 
renders my departure the happier ; while my go- 
ing forth would be inexpressibly sorrowful if you 



READY-MADE SPEECHES KH 

had convinced me that to you it brought no re- 
grets. The statement seems to develop some- 
thing incongruous in human nature. 

But the answer, I think, exhibits a truth which 
is very much deeper than the apparent contra- 
diction on the surface. The explanation is — is it 
not — that although many thousands of miles of 
ocean many roll between us, I am not wholly 
parting from you. I shall miss your visible 
presence, and my ears shall long for the sounds 
of your voices, and yet some part of your life, 
which has become an intimate part of my own, 
goes with me. Your affection, which is as real to 
me as the expression of your faces, will form an 
element in my every experience. 

For, dear friends, I am happy in that I am 
able to accept as sincere your assurances that your 
gift — valuable as it assuredly is in itself — is sym- 
bolic of something yet more precious and endur- 
ing. In return, may I not believe that, in fitting 
moments, the memory of my love for you will 
have its place in your many lives. 

The journey, since its taking has become a 
fixed fact in my outlook for the future, has grown 
pleasantly upon my imagination ; from which 
fact I have dared to guess that, after all, I am 



102 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

not a very sick man. If it shall fail to give me 
health and joy and strength, the failure shall not 
be from any want of will upon my part. I ex- 
pect to see many sights which I shall enjoy al- 
most with the pleasure of a child. Some old ac. 
quaintances, too, will greet me here and thereby 
the way— friends whom I had little thought to 
see again. It is all very tempting. 

And yet, dear friends, for some wise inscrutable 
reason, Providence has inexorably decreed that 
man, while he may w^ander all over the face of the 
globe, can have but one home at a time. So, 
when I have crossed the ocean and clasped the 
hands and looked into the faces of a few friends, 
and have gazed at the wonders of the Rhine and 
the Alps, and have stood enchanted before the 
works of the world's greatest masters of art — 
when Florence, and Naples and Rome shall have 
lost somewhat of their glamour of romance — 
then, inevitably, will come a moment when my 
heart will realize the fact that it, and I, are far 
from home. 

When that time comes, God Avilling, I shall re- 
turn to you. I shall come back with more of 
joy than I now go forth. But, dear friends, if 
the Higher Wisdom shall decree some other fate, 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 103 

you must still remember that in spirit — now, and 
then, and alvva^^s — I am with you. For all your 
thousand kindnesses I thank you from the bot- 
tom of my heart. 



XVIII 

TO A MEETING OF YOUNG MEN INTEE- 
ESTED IN LOCAL POLITICS 

Mr, Chairman and Fellow Citizens : 

Ought the young business man to take an 
active part in the politics of his municipality ? 

Before we give our final answer to that ques- 
tion let us pause for a few moments to consider 
exactly what it signifies. To my mind the theme 
may be very satisfactorily covered by the an- 
swers to three minor questions — two of them 
personal in their nature, and the third very defi- 
nitely public. 

Firsts what are the sacrifices which the busy 
young man makes by actively entering the field 
of politics ? 

Second^ what compensating advantages are 
likely to come to him personally from those 
sacrifices ? 

Thirds what is the effect of his presence or ab- 
sence upon the politics of his city ? 

You will notice, I not only have not ignored 
104 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 105 

the personal or so-called personal or selfish 
view of the question, but that I have given it the 
lirst and greatest consideration. I do this in the 
interest of honesty and clear thinking. There is 
in every great city, a large and disreputable class 
of men who make politics — I will not say, their 
business, because the word '^ business " still im- 
plies normal and honest methods — but who make 
politics the means by which they acquire money. 
It is for this reason, I suppose, that we have come to 
regard all financial and business advantages which 
grow out of political activity as in some way a little 
disreputable. It would, perhaps, be more accurate 
to say that we profess so to regard them, for the 
worst of it is that to a very great extent this very 
general assumption merges into hypocrisy — un- 
conscious hypocrisy, very often, but nevertheless, 
the genuine article. Of those who loudly chal- 
lenge the patriotism of all who consider their own 
interests in relation to their political action, I 
have known very few who would reject for them- 
selves any particular advantage because it hap- 
pened to accrue along political lines. Is it not 
better, therefore, to look the material features of 
the subject fully in the face at the outset. It 
seems so to me. 



106 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

And first, there is no evading the fact that the 
young man, living upon a moderate salary, pos- 
sibly with a growing family to support, does make 
some very definite sacrifices by taking upon him- 
self an active partnership in the government of 
his city. I say an active partnership because, if 
the best results are to be obtained, he must give 
something more than mere intermittent and cas- 
ual attention to the political work of his neigh- 
borhood. He is very probably in the employ of 
some one else who is legally the owner of his 
business hours. His political w^ork, therefore, is 
necessarily work " over time." It may mean 
somewhat of practical deprivation from the social 
pleasures of home and friends. It is very likely 
to call for the expenditure of more or less money 
just at that period of his life when money may 
be least plentiful. It may, and, indeed, is quite 
likely to bring to him some exceedingly unpleas- 
ant experiences. He may rely upon the ridicule 
and abuse from the professional politician who 
regards him merely as an impertinent meddler. 
When his work begins to count sufficiently to 
attract attention he may find himself subjected 
to various forms of pressure and coercion intended 
to drive him from the field. Worse, perhaps. 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 107 

than all else, he is liable to encounter misunder- 
standing and jealousy among his own associates. 

These, as frankly and briefly as I can present 
them, are the usual sacrifices incident to the seri- 
ous entrance of the young business man into ac- 
tive political life. He may, of course, join polit- 
ical clubs and talk much and loudly, either in 
private or public, of great national questions 
without encountering the disagreeable conditions 
of which I have spoken. The great national 
questions lie so far from the doors of the ordinary 
citizen that they are mere abstractions. They 
may be discussed with great candor without mak- 
ing troublesome enemies. But the politics which 
make disagreeable neighbors are the questions as 
to who shall control the making of offices, the 
drawing of salaries, and the administration of 
justice in your own city, or ward. They are 
very definite, practical, and personal. It is into 
this arena that the young man must step if he 
hopes to make his influence as a citizen count in 
concrete and visible results. 

Secondly, what is to be his compensation ? To 
begin at the bottom, he wuU make friends. I 
doubt whether there is any other field in which 
men meet men so squarely face to face, and learn 



108 EEADY-MADE SPEECHES 

to know so definitely each other's qualities of 
brain and character. Considered merely from 
the standpoint of business there are few things 
more valuable to the young man who has his way 
yet to win, than the confidence of friends. If he 
be a professional man — a young physician or 
lawyer— this is so obviously true as to require no 
argument. In the beginning of his career he is 
entirely dependent upon his acquaintance for his 
living. Every just and honorable means of in- 
creasing the number of those who know and re- 
spect him is more than justifiable. He has no 
right to neglect it. 

Next it gives him that knowledge and experi- 
ence of human nature without which business life 
is an exceedingly rugged pathway. Strangely 
enough there are many men — some of them who, 
by other qualities have attained more or less emi- 
nence — who all their lives are out of touch with 
the people around them. If a man is possessed by 
nature of such high qualities of mind or body as 
instantly to commend him to his fellows, the 
world will put up with some peculiarities of speech 
and manner. Sometimes it even seems to regard 
his defects as added virtues. Nevertheless, from 
the average man or woman it demands a general 



EEADY-MADE SPEECHES 1(>9 

sympathy with the motives of other men aiul 
women in the same walks of life. Not that there 
must be agreement of opinion, but there must be 
a general power and willingness to recognize 
the good faith of each with each. This implies 
that sort of worldly wisdom which we are accus- 
tomed to denominate " an understanding of hu- 
man nature.'^ It is immensely valuable to us all, 
and in some lives it is absolutely vital to success. 
There is no better school for its acquisition than 
that of local politics. 

Again, and yet more valuable, the experiences 
which I have in mind — the earnest, courageous, 
persistent fight for better conditions, often 
against odds which for the time being are over- 
whelming, stimulated by the conviction that 
right living is normal, and that evil conditions, 
no matter how discouraging they may appear, 
are the results of causes which may be remedied 
— such an experience as that, if we do not fall by 
the way — makes for that thing in our lives which 
we call manhood. It teaches independence, it 
broadens the outlook of the mind, it gives a new 
significance to life, and it reveals to the young- 
man his own powers and responsibilities. He will 
have become a true citizen. He will have earned 



110 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

and will receive the respect of all who come 
within the circle of his personal influence. Con- 
sciously, or unconsciously, that is the human 
goal of all manhood. 

Lastly, what means it to our country, this de- 
cision of the young man to accept or renounce 
his rights in the domain of politics ? I am going 
to answer that question by referring to an item 
of news which I, and doubtless many of you, 
read in a local paper within the week. It was 
merely the announcement that " Pin wheel Jim- 
mey " had been convicted of the crime of lar- 
ceny, in that he had stolen the sum of thirty dol- 
lars. Incidentally, there was added the informa- 
tion that " Jimmey " had long been the political 
leader for his party in the division in which he 
lived. As I read this item and reflected upon 
the political conditions which had made such an 
item a mere commonplace, it occurred to me 
that in all probability Jimmey had good grounds 
to complain of the ingratitude of republics. 
Knowing merely what you and I are compelled 
to know of the functions of the division leader 
in those localities w^hich " make majorities " on 
election day, it seemed altogether likely that the 
hand of the law had fallen upon this man during 



EEADY-MADE SPEECHES 111 

a lapse into comparative honesty. Tliere being- 
nothing doing in the political line— -no ballot 
boxes to be stuffed, no repeaters to be guided 
from poll to poll, no comrade at the bar of justice 
to be rescued by a perjured alibi — what could he 
be expected to do, short of maintaining an inex- 
cusable idleness. There was certainly no culpa- 
ble variation from his usual occupation. He 
merely encountered a bit of bad luck in the 
police and jury line. Do not, however, imagine 
him as irretrievably ruined in fortune and repu- 
tation. On the contrary, he now goes on to that 
glorious list of martyrs for whom his principals 
— the men " higher up " — are in honor bound 
presently to make a place at the public crib. 
He wuU be " vindicated." 

Gentlemen, I have nothing more to add. De- 
cide for yourselves whether or not my analysis 
of the case of " Pinwheel Jimmey " is true to the 
political conditions in which we live. If it is — 
if it is into his hands, and into the hands of 
others such as he, that the primary political 
power in our great cities has been allowed to 
fall, what words of mine could add to the pathos 
of the appeal. To the thoughtful mind, in the 
presence of such facts as these, more eloquence 



112 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

is dumb. If they are true, they can neither be 
evaded nor ignored. They must be met and 
overcome. To you— to the young men in the hol- 
low of whose hands rests the happiness or the 
misery, the glory or the shame of the next gen- 
eration — to you we look for the redemption of 
our city. Surely, surely we shall not look in 
vain. 



XIX 

PEBSENTATION OF A WATCH TO A 
YOUNG MAN (Humorous) 

My Dear Harry : 

Matters have reached a climax. We, your 
old friends, find it impossible longer to conceal 
our affection for you. We have felt it coming on 
for a long time — in fact ever since you bloomed 
out in that blue-bell vest and lovely pink neck- 
tie, by which beautiful tokens we knew that at 
last you had struck a steady job, or lost a rich 
uncle and were likely to be good for cigars and 
things. For a time we feared that your good 
fortune might turn your head ; that yielding to 
the great primitive impulses of your big heart you 
might be led to indulge in barbaric display, and 
invite us all to a feast of cheese sandwiches and 
ginger ale. With a splendid self-restraint, how- 
ever, you did nothing of the kind. Taking us 
confidentially one at a time you " chucked " us 
for the cigars. We have compared notes atid 
are able to report the result with much accuracy. 
Out of thirteen chucks you won nine, lost three, 

113 



114 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

and settled the other by a Jersey treat — each 
fellow paying for his own. I recite these inci- 
dents merely that you may understand that we 
love you for yourself alone, and not for anything 
which we now hope to be able to get out of you. 

Being warmed by these memories, we, the nine 
who lost, have been moved to testify our undying 
devotion to you. To put our sentiments into 
permanent form, we have purchased this beauti- 
ful timepiece. Kindly inspect it. Indeed, it is 
quite unique. It is so arranged and regulated 
that it is physically impossible that it shall ever 
lose or gain the minutest fraction of a second. 
It does not require to be wound up — unless the 
reckless generosity of its owner shall some time 
make it necessary to wind up his watch, and all 
the rest of his affairs, in bankruptcy. You will 
observe that its hands point exactly, and stead- 
fastly, to the hour of eight. In this there is a 
most delicate bit of symbolism, suggested by the 
feast of congratulation which you restrained 
yourself from giving in honor of your good for- 
tune. It is to be read, " nothing to eight." 

It is stolid faced, hunting cased, triple escape- 
ment, hand chased, full jeweled, and fitted out 
with the latest thing in the line of burglar alarm. 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 115 

It's water proof, and fire can't hurt it. On a 
cold winter's night it is simply invaluable. You 
remove the works, the absence of which, by the 
way, will not in the least impair its utility as a 
time-keeper — insert a good sized red pepper and 
use it for a warming pan. It will likewise serve 
as a chafing dish, and may be used, upon a fish- 
ing excursion, as a receptacle for bait. 

But I have said enough. Something must be 
left to the imagination. One by one you will 
discover for yourself other beauties and utilities 
in this timepiece which I doubt not will each 
bring its own wonderment and delight. It is 
yours ! Speak not of its value ! Were it many 
times as precious as it is, it would yet be none 
too good. 

RESPONSE TO THE FOREGOING 

My dear Tom: 

It would be useless for me, in this pres- 
ence, to deny that I have been touched — I may 
say, deeply touched — by yourself and these, our 
mutual friends. But let that pass. I'm im- 
mensely glad to see you. When, late this after- 
noon, I received the first hint of this impending 



116 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

honor I made such hasty preparation as I might. 
From old Gardena's I ordered in this little box, 
with whose outward appearance you are all in a 
general way, familiar. He assures me, on the 
honor of a Cuban patriot, that it is something 
very special direct from Havana. In the ad- 
joining room a modest little supper is waiting, 
and — if you'll pardon the hint — it must not be 
kept waiting much longer. 

But nothing, not even hunger, shall cause me 
to overlook your splendid gift. It is dazzling, 
resplendent, magnificent ; and yet, as I gaze upon 
it, I find myself the victim of a growing fear^ — 
a fear that you, my friends, too greatly moved 
by love for one who is all too unworthy of such 
a sacrifice, may have over-taxed your purses in 
the sacred cause of friendship. I pray that it 
may not be so ; but, w^hile I neither know nor 
seek to learn the money cost of your gift, I can- 
not shut my eyes to the fact that its value is that 
of many, many carrots. 

But friends, the involuntary direction of your 
eyes warns me not to detain you longer with 
mere idle speech. I accept your gift with that 
great sincerity which marked its giving. That 
it might not too long be exposed to the public 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 117 

gaze, and so possibly become the means of tempt- 
ing some weak mortal to his fall, I have — as I 
explained just now — procured this empty box 
from Gardena, in which I thus deposit it. There 
in all the years to come, it will be safe from un- 
sympathetic gaze or ribald comment. 

And now your very great kindness has en- 
couraged me to ask yet another favor at your 
hands. I have already made passing mention of 
a little dinner in the adjoining room. To my 
mind nothing so adds to the joyousness of a feast 
as music. If your tastes and mine agree, why — 
there's the piano. I will be with you presently, 
and I trust you may remain for an evening of 
agreeable and improving conversation. In the 
meantime, while I am in there bolting my be- 
lated meal, I hope to hear your voices raised in 
song. Might I suggest, as most appropriate 
to the occasion, that you sing the Larboard 
Watch to the tune of the Watch on the Rhine. 
Nothing, I assure you, nothing short of roast 
turkey and trimmings could tempt me, even tem- 
porarily to forego the pleasure of your company. 

(This exchange of courtesies is presumably fol- 
lowed by a dinner or some other form of hospi- 
tality.) 



XX 

PEESBNTATION TO THE CAPTAIN OF A 

FISHING SCHOONEE FOE AN HEE- 

OIO EESCUE 

Captain Daniel Bolt : 

Fifteen passengers of the wrecked steamer, 
John Endicott, believe that the fact that they are 
alive to-day is due to the heroism of yourself and 
crew. Personally, I see little room to dispute the 
correctness of this theory. I have been requested 
to make known to you our united and individual 
gratitude. 

Happily the greater number of our passengers 
had been landed before the steamer began to go 
to pieces. It was then that the storm came on at 
its height, and it became very clear that no boat 
could reach us from the beach. To those who 
gazed out at us during that fearful hour, the 
scene must have been vivid enough, but to those 
of us who were of, and a part of it, it passes be- 
yond the descriptive power of speech. Our boats 
wei'e gone^ the waves were beating over us with 

lis 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 119 

what seemed like conscious and ever increasing 
anger, and the planks beneath our feet were 
writhing and groaning in the Titanic grasp of an 
enemy whose strength seemed limitless, and who 
knew no mercy. The fury of the gale was fast 
driving the breath from our lungs and the life 
from our hearts. Already we had ceased to be 
able to communicate with each other by audible 
speech. The sun had been invisible for hours, 
and night was close at hand. 

The only evidence of humanity that still 
reached our senses was the sight of a distant 
light, which was uncertainly visible to us when 
we rose to the summit of some mighty wave. It 
brought us no hope, for we knew that between 
it and ourselves lay those dreadful reefs— the 
" Shark's Teeth," I believe you call them— wait- 
ing hungrily for the inevitable. Our last rocket 
had been fired, but that mattered little, for not a 
man among us could have lighted a match if life 
and the treasure of a nation had been the reward. 
All we could do was to cling with the clutch of 
despair to whatever object promised us a few 
more seconds of miserable existence. We were 
as helpless as babes, and our senses were fast 
yielding to that merciful lethargy with which 



120 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

Providence sometimes softens the coming of 
death. 

That, so far as words uttered by one who has. 
not yet wholly escaped from the terror of the 
situation can make it known, was the situation, 
when, rising upon the crest of a great wave, we 
caught sight of a second and nearer light. Pres- 
ently, and before I was wholl}^ sure that my eyes 
had not played me false, my ears were greeted 
by a strain of the sweetest music which I ever 
expect to hear. It was the whistle of your tug, 
defying the storm and sending us at once a greet- 
ing and a promise. I do not believe that, at first, 
any of us expected to be rescued ; but the sudden 
realization that brave men were doing battle on 
our behalf was like the hearty grasp of a friendly 
hand. It reminded us that the sun, which was 
far beyond our vision, was not in truth obliterated 
from the sky ; and that hope was not dead. 

Exactly what happened next, you can tell far 
better than I. By some legerdemain of sea-craft, 
you converted the waves which seemed wholly 
bent upon our annihilation, into your messengers 
of mercy. Upon the crest of one of these you 
sent us a cask to which was fastened a good stout 
line. Drawing in the line we brought to our 



EEADY-MADE SPEECHES 121 

rescue the big life cable. It seems quite simple, 
to describe it here looking out upon the repentant 
and sunlit sea ; but forty-eight hours ago it was a 
veritable miracle of salvation. 

Time can never dim our grateful recollection 
of your courage. We, who by your achievement 
are the survivors of the appalling scene, have 
united in a personal letter addressed to you and 
the brave men who so dauntlessly carried out 
your commands, in which we acknowledge the 
debt which we can never hope to discharge. Ac- 
cept it as a token of friendship between us. If, 
to you or to them fate shall ever in the future 
bring personal distress, we beg the privilege of 
rendering to you such assistance as may then lie 
in our power. Whatever that may chance to be 
—whether the mere clasp of the hand with an ex- 
pression of sympathy in an hour of sorrow, or the 
casting of a life-line in some of life's innumerable 
storms — rest assured that it shall be given with 
all good will. 

And now, as a slight material token of our 
gratitude, I am bidden to place in your hand this 
purse, and to ask that you make such use of its con- 
tents for the benefit of yourself and your gallant 
little crew as may in your better judgment be 



122 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

wisest. Again, from the very bottom of our 
hearts, we express our gratitude and appreciation 
of 3^our deed of splendid courage. 



EESPONSE TO THE FOREGOmO 
Mr. Hopkins, and Passengers of the Endi. 

COTT : 

I'm going to call right off for some of that 
assistance which you've just promised us when 
any of us get into a tight place. You'll have to 
help me out on the speechmaking tack. My elo- 
quence always has something to do with double 
reefing the mainsail, or getting busy with the 
tiller. When everything is going all right on an 
even keel, I'm apt to sail pretty close to the wind^ 
so far as talk is concerned. Of course we're all 
mighty glad that we got between the Endicott 
and " the Teeth " in time to be of some use. In 
a northeast storm this is as ugly a bit of coast 
right here as you can find from Hatteras to Cape 
Ann. 

There's only one thing that I sort of thought 
I'd like to say while I was listening to you just 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 123 

now. You forget one party, and she was mighty 
important. I mean the tug, herself. Most lands- 
men lay all the blame and all the praise of a 
wreck or a rescue on the captain and crew. They 
don't count the boat, and that's why I want a 
minute or two now to put in my oar. I could 
talk about the Dolphin for an hour. A good boat 
isn't just a steam engine stuck in among a lot of 
planks. She's a real creature, and unless she does 
her part right up to the gunwale, the captain and 
crew can't do the trick once in a dozen times. 

What I mean is like this ; if the Dolphin had 
gone cranky in her helm or rudder chains when 
we were trying to drift that keg down on you 
through a boiling sea — if she hadn't minded me as 
steady as a doctor's horse a going to the stable — 
we couldn't have got the line within twenty 
fathom of you. But — well, do you know how it 
seemed to me ? It was just like the Dolphin .was 
doing the thing herself and we were just standing 
by to lend a hand. I s'pose that sounds queer 
to you, but according to my idea, there's just as 
much sense in the Dolphin as in most horses. So 
if ever any of you happen to see the old tug stuck 
in the mud on a falling tide, just give a pull at the 
hawser and help her off. You owe it to her. 



124 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

We're all very much obliged for your good 
wishes, and I shall see that what's in this purse 
goes where it'll do a whole lot of good. And now, 
if it's all the same to you, I guess I'll — anchor. 



XXI 

ADDEESS OF COXGEATULATIOX AT THE 
OPEXIXG OF A XEW POLITICAL CLUB 

Mr. Chairmat^ and Members of the Theo- 
dore Bryat^ Club: 

It is both an honor and a pleasure to address 
such an audience as is now before me. He must 
be a dull man, indeed, whose pulse would not 
quicken and whose brain would not respond to 
the enthusiasm which shows in your faces. 

You are drawn together by the highest of all 
civic impulses, patriotism. It is doubtless possible 
for a man to be a patriot all alone b}" himself, but 
}^ou wisely understand that only by cooperation 
can you or any set of men hope to exert the 
full and legitimate power of your citizenship. 
You have, therefore, done well to unite yourselves 
into one body and secure this beautiful room for 
your meeting place. 

There are those, I am aware, who see in such 
an organization as yours little beyond a mani- 
festation of the o-reo^arious instinct w^hich exists 

125 



126 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

in the lower animals as well as in man. To them, 
your voluntary coming together here is suggest- 
ive of nothing more significant than the herding 
of cattle beneath the shade of some great tree at 
midday. They are the men who do their work, 
as you might say, in the abstract. They only 
come together under perfectly conventional con- 
ditions and for purposes of refined social pleasure 
or for definite business reasons. 

Perhaps, if I may be allowed to trespass so 
much upon your time, I cannot do better than to 
tell you a little story illustrating the difference 
between the two classes of citizens w^hen they 
deal with local politics. I am assuming equal 
virtue and good faith upon the part of each — the 
men who love to get together, and the men who 
seem to believe in doing things by absent treat- 
ment—and I am criticising merely their methods. 

A local election is at hand, and there is a 
member of councils to be elected from the twentj^- 
third ward. The gentlemen of whom I speak — 
and my picture is not wholly an imaginary one — 
have given the matter much consideration. Al- 
ready they had in their minds a certain very 
beautiful rainbow w^hich they believe is the arch 
upon which alone a popular government can be 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 127 

made to rest. Here, in the reformation of the 
city councils, is the appropriate point at which to 
begin its construction. The twenty-third ward 
must have a councilman of an entirely new and 
improved pattern. Do not regard me as ridicul- 
ing their judgment up to this point, nor above 
all, as impugning their motives. Doubtless the 
twenty-third ward, and many other wards beside, 
were in crying need of better representatives. 
Just now we are merely examining the two 
methods by which political results may be at- 
tempted. 

These gentlemen do much thinking, and finally 
decide upon their candidate. His business stand- 
ing is excellent, and there is not the slightest 
whisper of reproach against his moral character. 
Moreover he makes a very good speech, which 
gift has frequently been made known to the read- 
ing public by the newspaper reports of the con- 
vocations of the great religious body of which he 
is a conspicuous member. But can he be in- 
duced to accept the responsibility — to give up so 
much of his valuable time as will be required 
for attendance on the meetings of councils and 
its committees ? That is the crucial question. 
A lady emissary of much shrewdness is sent to 



128 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

visit his wife and, in the name of civic redemp- 
tion, to enlist her sympathies. His closest busi- 
ness associates are sounded, and if possible, drawn 
into the scheme. At last a beautifully engrossed 
petition, bearing the signatures of every man of 
prominence in the ward is presented to the 
coveted candidate. It is read to him at the close 
of a complimentary dinner Avhich had been ar- 
ranged and eaten in the interest of a cleaner city 
government. He takes forty-eight hours in 
which to consider the matter, consults the people 
who are nearest to him, and writes a letter to the 
gentleman who presided at the dinner. 

In that letter he makes it very clear that not 
only is he without political ambition, but that the 
idea of public office is absolutely distasteful to 
him. His business interest will, of course, 
greatly suff'er from his enforced neglect. Never- 
theless he realizes the evil of the existing local 
conditions and does not feel at liberty to refuse 
any services upon his part which may tend to 
their alleviation. He will accept the nomination 
if tendered to him, and, if elected, will serve the 
people to the very best of his ability. The next 
day it is announced in the public press that, to 
the very great gratification of the voters of the 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 129 

twenty-third ward, Mr. A. Beknighted St. Cloud, 
the senior member of the well known firm of St. 
Cloud, Blueblood & Gould, has consented to the 
use of his name by his party as its candidate for 
councils at the February election. The worthy 
gentlemen who discovered the candidate and in- 
duced him to stand, are covered with a warm 
glow of satisfaction, and regard the thing as all 
done but counting the votes. 

Now, it happens that in the lower end of the 
twenty-third ward, in a hall over a grocery store 
in Bliven Street, there exists the Twenty -third 
Ward Bill Jones Club. Bill Jones, the patron 
saint of the club, is a man who has made much 
money by the brewing of beer, and having made 
money, became ambitious of political honors. 
He is not a model patriot. He is not much given 
to weighing the methods by which he accom- 
plishes his results. But he understands human 
nature and human needs. He organized the 
club and furnished the hall at his expense. 
He drew into it five hundred men, not a score of 
whom are known to Mr. St. Cloud either by 
name, sight, or reputation. He gave these men a 
good time, and brought bright young men to 
make speeches to them. He organized them into 



130 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

committees, and saw to it that the best man in 
each election division was given some position of 
prominence and utility. He did many favors 
to the individual member in times of need. 
Gentlemen, you have realized, of course, that I 
am not describing the free and independent club, 
such as your own, but one of the ''one man" 
variety of which there are so many in every large 
city during our stirring political campaigns. But 
— and it is my point, just at present — it was a 
club. A very considerable number of voters are 
brought familiarly together to be used en masse. 
Now it happens again that the club on Bliven 
Street, and particularly its treasurer, Bill Jones, 
has no affinity for Mr. St. Cloud. The nearest 
that most of the members have ever come to 
making his acquaintance was when some half a 
dozen of them, on the way to the club one even- 
ing, were obliged to take to the street by reason 
of the awning which was stretched from the curb 
to the door of his handsome residence. When 
they saw in the papers that he was expected to 
be their party candidate they held one long and 
interesting meeting, with closed doors. When 
they adjourned, each of them was provided with 
a visiting list, and considerable information — some 



EEADY-MADE SPEECHES 131 

of it true, but most of it false — as to what was 
to be expected by the common people if Mr. St. 
Cloud should get control of the politics of the 
twenty-third ward. There was no visible fight 
made against Mr. St. Cloud's nomination. In- 
deed, his name seemed so acceptable to all mem- 
bers of the party with whom his personal friends 
came in contact, that it would have been absurd 
to ask the delegates to pledge themselves to his 
nomination. In fact, he had no antagonist. 

When- the nominating convention met Mr. St. 
Cloud's name was placed before it in a most 
eloquent and convincing speech, and was received 
with a perfect whirlwind of applause. The ap- 
plause, by the way, was supplied chiefly by the 
members of the Bill Jones Club. When quiet 
was restored a man in the back of the room 
stepped upon his chair and begged to name Mister 
Tim O'Gregg, " thut keeps th' s'loon t' th' corner o' 
Mears's AUe}^ th' offus o' councilman, Mr. Prisi- 
dint." There was a moment of silence, and then 
a man away off to the left arose to second the 
nomination, but was anticipated b}^ one of Mr. 
St. Cloud's most active friends. This was a per- 
fectly free convention, he explained, having no 
object other than the selection of the best man. He 



132 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

took pleasure, very great pleasure indeed, in sec- 
onding the nomination of Mr. — of the gentle- 
man whose name had just been mentioned. 
There was a sprinkling of applause, and then be- 
gan the calling of the roll. As it proceeded, the 
friends of Mr. St. Cloud passed successively and 
rapidly from amusement — when four out of the 
first five votes were actually cast for O'Gregg — 
to surprise, from surprise to concern, from con- 
cern to amazement, and from amazement to panic. 
I do not recall the first figures, but the first five 
votes were a fair sample of the rest. O'Gregg, 
from " th' corner o' Mears's Alley," was nomi- 
nated, and St. Cloud was — nowhere. 

I have told you this story, not merely for your 
entertainment, but as an efficient and genuine illus- 
tration of the value of cooperation in politics, as 
is in ail other of the important concerns of life. 
The gentlemen of the twenty-third ward were 
anxious to do a good thing — a thing the like of 
which needs to be done in half the wards of 
ev^er}^ great city in the United States. But their 
point of view was from the top of the flag-pole. 
Thej^ were out of touch with — one might almost 
say out of sight of the people who were to do 
the voting. Probably they had no thought of 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 133 

pla3^ing the role of political dictators, and yet 
their action was very easily construed into that 
shape. They became mere playthings in the 
hands of Bill Jones and his club. They went 
down, not necessarily before the powers of evil, 
but before the power of cooperation. Had they 
been wise enough long ago to have organized and 
maintained a ward club, they would have pos- 
sessed the means of doing that which, as it was, 
they hardly more than dreamed. 

So, gentlemen, believing in the good uses to 
which you will put your own splendid organiza- 
tion, and thanking you for your patience, I wish 
you every success, and — good night. 



XXII 

TO THE GEADUATING CLASS OF A BOYS' 
ACADEMY 

Young Gentlemen : 

By the invitation of the trustees of this 
institution I am to address you for a few moments 
upon this, the eve of your departure from these 
venerable and familiar walls. Some of you, I 
am informed, are to enter the colleges and uni- 
versities of neighboring states, there yet further 
to pursue the paths of learning. Others are, at 
once, to turn to the great highways of business 
and professional life. To each and all, however, 
there comes just now a moment of rest — a brief 
pause between the old and the new — ere you turn 
your expectant gaze upon the future. 

From the examples of your original work 
which have been so agreeably presented upon 
this platform this evening we realize that the 
fame of this time honored institution will be fully 
sustained by the class which is now about to pass 
beyond its portals. To your alma mater and to 

134 



EEADY-MADE SPEECHES 135 

you we extend our most hearty and sincere con- 
gratulations. 

And now, what as to the future ? Upon such 
an occasion as this one is greatly tempted to strive 
after something which, either in form or substance, 
shall be sufficiently striking to impress itself upon 
the imagination. It has, therefore, required a 
touch of self-restraint upon my part to turn from 
that temptation and to decide to devote the very 
few minutes which I can fairly occupy in discuss- 
ing one of the most hackneyed of themes. I shall 
speak to you in advocacy of honesty — of that 
quality without which no man ever was, or even 
can be, great. 

It is not my purpose to appeal to such 
young men as are now before me to avoid the 
temptation to pick a pocket or burglarize a house 
at midnight. I shall, however, appeal to you to 7 
begin early and persist inexorably in forming the 
habit of honest thinking and honest speaking. 
Avoid equivocation and all forms of indirection. 
I do not mean to advocate the absurd extreme to 
which occasionally we see the virtue of candor 
carried. If your friend casually remarks that it 
is a fine day, it is not your duty to contradict 
him because you regard it as rather too hot; 



136 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

nor need you fight every genuine difference of 
opinion to the bitter end. The honesty to which 
I refer does not require that you shall make an 
intellectual hedgehog of yourself, with quills ever 
on end for a conflict. 

But I do mean this ! Never, to yourself, nor 
to any one else, consciously sacrifice your sense 
of Yeracity, Excuse yourself from answering a 
question, rather than so answer it that, later, it 
shall be uncomfortable to remember your answer. 
Always preserve the power to stand perfectly 
erect when alone in your own presence. Candor, 
as a habit, maj^ occasionally get you into an un- 
comfortable position, but, believe me, it is plain 
sailing, indeed, compared with the swamps and 
sandbars which beset the course of the equiv- 
ocator. 

Gentlemen, notwithstanding all appearances to 
the contrary, it is not my purpose this evening to 
give you a moral lesson. No man among you 
needs that. The place of the liar and of him who 
lives by deceit is too firmly established to need 
the finger of scorn to warn you from his exam- 
ple. I have chosen to emphasize honesty to- 
night, not primarily because of morality — which 
we all appreciate — nor yet because, in the language 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 137 

of Franklin, it is " the best policy." Without be- 
littling its value in the light either of abstract 
morality or of commercial utility, I would like, 
if I might, to lay before you a third argument in 
support of the " habit of honesty," which I be- 
lieve is not so fully recognized. 

If I were an expert upon physical culture and 
were now advocating a line of gymnastic exer- 
cise which would develop the greater muscles of 
your arms and bodies, I could easily make myself 
understood. Whatever might be your judgment 
as to the soundness of my method, you would 
readily recognize the value of my intention. So, 
in the same cold-blooded utilitarian, but'perfectly 
sincere, spirit, I do most strenuously advocate the 
cultivation of inwrought honesty, in small things 
as well as in great ones, as an intellectual and 
moral exercise which, more than anything else 
within my knowledge, goes to the development 
of human character. There is something funda- 
mental and enduring about truth which, at all 
times and always, makes for healthy manhood. 
I shall not undertake to tell you why, for I do 
not know. But I ask you to-night and in all your 
future lives, to look about you. 

From time to time decide for yourselves 



138 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

whether or not true strength of character, when 
you encounter it — excluding, of course, the egotist 
and the braggart, as being shams — is not invaria- 
bly rooted in a sturdy and courageous honesty. 
By that test, and by your final judgment upon its 
significance, both you and I must abide. So, in 
wishing you the best of fortunes in your progress 
along the pathway of life — worn smooth by the 
feet of myriads who have gone before, and yet 
ever new and wonderful to the pilgrim of to-day 
— I can invoke for you no guidance, nor grander 
genii than the homely virtue of honesty, whose - 
soul is — ^Truth. 



XXIII 

ADDEESS TO A TEMPEEAXCE MEETING 

Ladies and Gentle3ien : 

Keforms, like all other great natural move- 
ments, have their phases. When they first begin 
to make themselves known to the people they are 
of course unpopular. I say, ''of course," for if 
they were not unpopular — if they did not run 
counter to the public feeling — they would not be 
reforms. If they happen to be very radical, their 
first phase is martyrdom, as was that great reform 
instituted two thousand years ago by Jesus of 
Nazareth. Hardly yet, in some portions of the 
world, has it emerged from its trial of blood. If 
a great new movement survives this first period 
— this instinctive brute impulse of enraged hu- 
manity to crush with its physical power the thing 
which persists in disturbing it — it does so because 
it has successfully appealed to the brains and 
hearts of a considerable number of earnest and 
courageous people. This means that the world 
has decided to give it a fair trial, or, in the ex- 

139 



140 KEADY-MADE SPEECHES 

pressive idiom of our day, it has come to stay. 
Its day of victory may be far removed, for it yet 
has various minor phases of progress through 
which to pass — the phase of contumely and mis- 
representation, the phase of ridicule, and finally, 
the period of mere awaiting its turn. 

The great cause of temperance is, if I mistake 
not, now passing from the phase of ridicule to 
the period of waiting. It is still the subject of 
the passing jest, and the occasional gibe upon the 
stage, or by the writer of the " filling in " para- 
graphs of the daily paper. Manifestly, however, 
it is become a more and more diflBcult theme with 
w^hich to arouse the popular humor. The funny 
men will tell you, perhaps, that it is worn out. 
This is true. It is worn out because a slowly 
aroused public conscience sees something besides 
humor in the spectacle of the drunken father and 
husband staggering home from his club at three 
o'clock in the morning. His maudlin search for 
the keyhole is not funny enough permanently to 
shut out the sense of wretchedness that is for- 
ever connected with the thought of domestic un- 
happiness. The world is no longer quite willing 
to laugh in the faces of the wife and children 
doomed to the misery of a drunkard's home. 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 141 

It would be strange indeed if tlie moral quali- 
ties and sensibilities of a great people could be 
permanently halted in a state of barbarism in the 
midst of such a vast intellectual and physical ad- 
vance as has occurred during the last hundred 
years. Am I wrong in relegating the habit of 
voluntary intoxication to the state which we gen- 
erally describe as barbarism ? I think not. I am 
not going to pause to deal with the moderate 
drinker. He is, scientifically considered, simply 
the incipient drunkard. He may or may not reach 
the full development of the condition upon which 
he has entered. He, and the accidents of his life, 
and not I must draw the line. But I do aver that 
all who, for the sake of their own mere appetites, 
help to fix upon the community such a vast and 
degrading vice are aiding to retard civilization. 
The burden of " the man in the gutter " does not 
rest wholly upon his own shoulders. The gen- 
tleman sipping his wine with his friends in his 
own home contributes his immense moral and 
financial support to the machine which, by day 
and night, is grinding out drunkards and suicides. 
Assuredly he has cause for reflection. ' 

But it was not my purpose again to present the 
dreadful picture which, whether you will or not, 



142 EEADY-MADE SPEECHES 

is always too familiar to your vision. There are, 
however, one or two suggestions which it may be 
profitable for us just now to note and consider. 
The first of these relates to the fact that our 
cause has successfully passed the varied prelimi- 
nary stages to which I have referred, and now 
awaits the final struggle which, I sincerely be- 
lieve, is to result in victory throughout our whole 
great land. During this period of waiting, have 
we nothing to do ? In some quarters that seems 
to be the conclusion, and it is that conclusion 
which I desire most earnestly to combat. In my 
judgment, slothfulness now is an error closely 
approaching crime. Let me show you the condi- 
tion as I see it. 

The life of the American nation is so full of 
things needing to be done that it is impossible to 
take up and dispose of each in the order of its 
inception. As a rule economic questions force 
their own consideration before those which are 
purely moral. With this fact we need not be 
impatient, for it is only the assertion that a man 
must first secure the means of living before he de- 
cides upon the moral details of his life. I am 
making no confession as to the real importance 
of these varied and insistent issues which so en- 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 143 

gross the popular attentioa to the exclusion of 
our own, beyond admitting that the public atti- 
tude is not incomprehensible. 

Let me now call your attention to an analogy 
which points the way to our present duty. Not 
only are there many more questions clamor- 
ing for public attention than can promptly re- 
ceive it, but even the great departments of 
government are similarly overcrowded. Take, 
for example, the Supreme Court of the United 
States. Its business is all of very great impor- 
tance, but the volume of litigation upon its 
dockets so accumulates as to put it years behind 
in its work. So it has recognized a practice by 
which cases of the most immediate and vital im- 
portance can be considered out of their turn — 
sometimes years ahead of the time when they 
would ordinarily be heard. This practice is 
known as a " motion to advance upon the calen- 
dar." If the litigant can show to the court that 
his case is of preeminent importance the court will 
make an order by which the suit is moved for- 
ward upon the argument list. 

That is exactly what we should be doing on be- 
half of the most important issue now before the 
American people. We should show them that 



144 READY=MADE SPEECHES 

the time Las come when mere economic questions 
should be put aside until the lives of the growing 
boys and girls of our land shall have been safe- 
guarded against the most insidious and dangerous 
foe which ever has, or ever will beset them. Let 
us show them that questions of taxation, being 
well enough as they are, can wait their final per- 
fection until, by legislation and aroused moral 
sentiment, we shall have checked the moral deca}^ 
of human character which is abroad in the land. 
I believe, as truly as I believe that I am standing 
before you this moment, that the public mind and 
conscience are with us, needing only to be shown 
that now is the appointed time. Our present 
work, therefore, is to induce the great earnest ele- 
ment of our people to aid us in " advancing the 
cause of temperance — the cause of the oncoming 
generations of American boys and girls, and of 
the manhood which is to be — of advancing that 
most vital of all causes upon the calendar of the 
high Court of Public Conscience." In this, we 
shall be profoundly assisted by the fact that it 
has now become very clear that our cause is eco- 
nomic as well as moral. Every casual reader of 
our financial statistics knows beyond the possi- 
bility of doubt that there is no great national ex- 



READY-]\IADE SPEECHES 145 

travagance comparable to the liquor traffic. To 

express the situation in a sentence, the liquor 

traffic is the means by which fabulous sums are 

annually taken from the pockets of the people and 

used to make necessary more jails and insane 

asylums. If the idea were possible, one is tempted 

to pronounce the case of the liquor dealer even 

more infamous upon its economic, than upon its 

moral side. But, where a thing in all its aspects, 

is wholly and indefensibly wrong, why subject it 

to such comparison. Let us vigorously, fearlessly, 

and without the shadow of turning back, move ^ 

forward to victory. , ; 



XXIY 

ADDEESS TO A CLUB OF WOEKING BOYS 

Young Men : 

Whenever I am called upon to speak to 
a gathering of young people I try to recall what 
manner of speech brought either pleasure or profit 
to me when, being myself young, I was com- 
pelled occasionally to endure adult eloquence. 
Out of these retrospective meditations I always 
bring at least one very definite recollection. It 
always becomes quite clear to me that the kind of 
a speech which I surely did not enjoy was the one 
which was most visibly loaded with good advice. 
It doubtless ought to have been otherwise, but 
my mind was never very eager to be enlightened 
as to the things which I ought, or ought not to 
do to be happy. 

Further reflection has convinced me that a 
great deal of very excellent advice is somewhat 
worse than wasted upon young people by being 
supplied to them in too great quantities and 
upon inappropriate occasions. I am not, how- 

146 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 147 

ever, convinced that those of us who have had 
forty or fifty years of experience in life have not 
something which, if we but know how to impart 
it, may be of value to those who are just about 
to undertake the same journey. Many secrets 
of life there are, which are just as little within 
my knowledge to-day as they were in my boy- 
hood. The amount of knowledge which the 
wisest of men acquires in a lifetime is insignifi- 
cant when compared with the volume of his 
ignorance. Yet some things he, and those of us 
who are not so wise, do surely learn. 

All this I have said by way of apologj^ for the 
smallness of the offering which I bring you to- 
night. I beg you to test it for quality instead of 
quantity. If you will do this, and shall find in 
my single conclusion the grain of wisdom which I 
sincerely believe it to contain, I shall dare to 
hope that the time which you are so kindly de- 
voting to me this evening will not have been 
wholly wasted. Bear with me while I illustrate 
my thought before putting it in words. 

It is likely, in the ordinary course of your early 
experience in business or mechanical life, that 
you will find yourselves set at tasks which seem 
to give but little play to ambition. You will 



148 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

have routine work which has to be done, but 
which in its doing affords no visible opportunity 
for special skill. The difference between doing 
it well and doing it ill may seem too slight to be 
seriously taken into account. Some one, doubt- 
less, is watching to make sure that the task is 
done, but he is not alert either to praise or blame 
you for the manner of its performance. In other 
words, your work may be just part of the com- 
mon grind. 

But it is in just such situations as these that a 
young man has the opportunity of his life. 
Don't be impatient of recognition, for recogni- 
tion sometimes comes late. The opportunity to 
which I refer is the opportunit}^ to cultivate and 
increase your own powers. Be efficient ! Do 
everj^thing you undertake with the fixed inten- 
tion to do it in the best way that it is possible for 
that particular thing to be done. Merely doing 
it may not be much, but no man ever yet was 
conscious of having done his work to the very 
best of his ability without a distinct addition to 
his own powers. Efficiency ! It's a great word. 
It's the world's passport along the highway to 
success. The man who is truly efficient in the 
performance of the meanest of labors is always 



EEADY-MADE SPEECHES 149 

capable of something better. More than that, 
efficiency once adopted as your standard — once 
recognized as your serious, conscious and con- 
stant aim — will not fall away from you with your 
change of occupa.tion. It will be a part of you, 
as is your hand. In fact you will become in- 
capable of ever doing your second best. You 
will have become a high grade workman no mat- 
ter what may be your task. 

Let me emphasize that thought a moment 
longer, for I am assured that if you once rec- 
ognize its truth, you will never again do your- 
selves the injustice of showing to the world, or 
even to yourself, anything short of your best. I 
solemnly believe that the bricklayer who has 
held himself faithfully to his greatest efficiency 
with trowel and mortar, will, if fate should ever 
turn him into a lawyer or doctor, enter his new 
profession with one splendid element of success 
already in hand. He will not be able to slight 
his work in the higher, any more than he was in 
the humbler field. In all his efforts he will show 
efficiency. 

So this is my appeal. Perform your work with 
an indomitable determination to do it perfectly. 
Do not fear that your employer will fail to give 



150 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

you credit. If you will observe closely you will 
see that the thoroughly efficient man is never 
long overlooked. You will see him advancing 
from one position to another with a certainty of 
motion that you may at first attribute to friendly 
favoritism. But favoritism cannot long support 
a man in a position which he cannot fill. It is 
efficiency— that capacity for always doing your 
best, and never being satisfied with anything 
short of the nearest attainable to perfection — that 
gives favoritism its opportunity. 

But you will not be left to the chances of influen- 
tial friendship. There is something ennobling 
about the quality in itself, which gives to its pos- 
sessor a visible and conscious rank above the man 
who merely does the thing he must. The world 
about him cannot long be blind to what he is. 
Once there was a man Avho gave his whole life to 
the perfection of a musical instrument. He gave 
to us an instrument that immortalized his name. 
So grandly efficient was he that there seemed no 
impiety in that which was said of his final 
work " God could not make a Stradivarius violin 
without Stradivari." Take him, if you will, as 
the perfect illustration of that which I would 
wish you to strive to be. 



XXV 

ADDEESS BY A NEWLY ELECTED 

PEESIDEXT OF A YOUXG MEN'S 

LITEEAEY SOCIETY 

Fellow Members of the Websterian Liter- 
ary Society : 

To one and all of you I return my sincerest 
thanks for the honor which you have seen fit to 
bestow upon me. My appreciation of the com- 
pliment is all the greater from my knowledge 
that you had before you an admirable list of 
candidates from which to choose. Entering upon 
the performance of my duties in this frame of 
mind, you may be assured that, so far as I have 
the ability, it shall be my aim to justify your 
judgment. 

Without doubt I shall make mistakes. When 
I do, please be patient with me until I see the 
error of my ways. Possibly, also, without mak- 
ing mistakes, I may at times render such decisions 
as shall not meet with your unanimous approval. 
I am impelled to acknowledge this latter possibil- 
ity by the recollection of certain scenes of— well^ 

151 



152 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

we won't call them scenes of disorder, but occa- 
sions of unrestrainable enthusiasm, within these 
walls. Upon one such occasion I recall the 
whimsical effect upon my own mind. Suddenly it 
was as if the dignified and erudite gentleman who 
then graced the chair which I am about to occupy 
had been involuntarily transformed, in the eyes 
of the membership, into one of those interesting 
figures— most commonly seen in the neighbor- 
hood of country fairs — at which you are invited 
to throw a ball in the hope of winning a prize. 
If you knock him oflf his perch you are, I believe, 
entitled to a cigar. 

The unanimity, energy, and undeniable earnest- 
ness with w^hich practically the entire audience 
arose and began to hurl oral missiles at the 
devoted head of your then president, inevitably 
suggested the fear, upon the part of each, that 
some one else, by his quicker aim, might pre- 
maturely bring down the game. I seemed to 
notice the impact of the " shots that missed," 
upon the wall just behind the ofiicial chair. I 
sympathized then with my predecessor, and, in 
anticipation, I now sympathize with myself. By 
way of lifting a mental umbrella in advance of 
such a storm, may I now assure you that if I 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 153 

shall ever fail to '' give the floor " to each of a 
dozen simultaneous claimants, it will be with no 
purpose to establish myself as the Tsar of this 
society, but merely because the floor is indivis- 
ible. 

And now may I speak a few words of serious 
admonition. Such occasions of relaxation as that 
to which I have just referred — " relaxation" is 
not, I think, too strong a word — in themselves, 
do no great harm. The shattered dignity of the 
presiding oflScer is easily patched up until it is 
practically as good as new. Yet we must not 
forget the fact that this society does not exist 
for the sole purpose of hilarity. It is to give 
us the opportunity, amid congenial surround- 
ings, to cultivate the capacity for logical thought 
and clear expression. It is not probable that 
all of us are to follow such future occupations 
as shall require habitual public speaking. It is, 
however, exceedingly probable that each of us 
shall find his position in life modified and affected 
by his ability to think clearly, and to get the 
legitimate benefit of his thoughts by making 
them known to others. 

Each of us needs to learn to use his brain for 
all the legitimate purposes of its creation. How^ 



154 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

many of us, or of any other body of young men of 
our acquaintance, can be truly said to do exactly 
that — to do their brain-work as well as they do the 
work of their hands ? How many of our seniors 
among the business men of our acquaintance are 
able to so control and use their mental faculties 
that they may be fairly described as expert 
thinkers ? So far as my own knowledge extends, 
not many. 

Let us, then, while we gladly accept the fun 
that we are bound to create for ourselves, bear 
always in mind the more important purpose of 
our organization. Let us be sufficiently in earnest 
to justify our own existence. 



XXVI 

ADDEESS DELIVEEED BY A LAYMAN 

AT A FUNEEAL m THE ABSENCE 

OF AN OEDAINED MINISTEE 

Dear Friends : 

We are drawn together to-day by the 
most solemn of human impulses. We have come 
to take our leave of all that is mortal and perish- 
able of , and to place within the 

sacred keeping of our memories all that is 
permanent and endurable. At such a moment it 
seems but right that some voice among us should 
shape to our ears the tender emotions which are 
filling our hearts, even if it may not be the voice 
of one officially chosen for that sacred task. 

I have known for nearly two- 
score years and have met him in all the varied 
paths of business and social life. Some of you have 
known him even longer than I. Standing here, 
face to face with death, we are to put together 
the lesson of his life. What has he meant to 
you and me ? At such a moment the virtue of 

16S 



156 EEADY-MADE SPEECHES 

kindly human candor becomes an imperative 
duty, and flattery a vain and trivial thing. 
Surely omnipotence is neither to be deceived nor 
pleased by a praise which comes not from the 
earnest heart. In all this world there is no 
dignity like that of simple truth. 

So, dear friends, it were no act of friendship, 
in this solemn presence, to claim that he who has 
passed away has lived a faultless life. He was 
mortal, and being so, erred as we have erred. 
He was one with us in his struggles, his failures, 
and his victories. Is it not, indeed, rather the 
failures of our lives than their successes, which 
draw us together and, in such an hour as this, 
give us the right to think of each other as 
children of one Father ? So we would not hide 
from ourselves or from the world those blemishes 
which do but proclaim his kinship with ourselves. 
He was our brother. 

But the faults w^hich, in life, were his, were 
never such as corroded or embittered human na- 
ture. He was a man of honor — utterly without 
the guile of indirection. His speech needed no 
subtle analysis to make sure that it concealed no 
falsehood in the guise of truth. Such was his 
contempt for equivocation that at times it may 



EEADY-MADE SPEECHES 157 

well have seemed to make him uncharitable to- 
ward slight and common lapses from the literal 
truth. But he was still more inexorable with 
himself than with others, and so his severity had 
in it no touch of malice. 

He was a generous man. Never accumulating 
great wealth, he, nevertheless, was always able 
to contribute somewhat to those whose needs 
were clearly greater than his own. What is 
perhaps the better test, he found time, amid the 
conduct of a business which could not be long 
neglected, to give his personal attention to 
several of our most useful charities. Association 
with him upon the governing board of one of 
these, enables me to testify to the value of his 
judgment and the high respect in which he was 
held by his fellow directors. We know not 
where to turn for his worth}^ successor. 

He was a man who greatly valued the love 
and friendship of his fellows. Some of you, I 
know, will receive this declaration with a touch 
of wonderment. Yet it is wholly true. Beneath 
an exterior which revealed but little of emotion, 
and which at times was even suggestive of harsh- 
ness, beat a heart which was capable of great pleas- 
ure or great pain. It was once my fortune to be 



158 EEADY-MADE SPEECHES 

with him when some act of his had been so mis- 
understood by an old and familiar friend that 
estrangement, from that time forth, seemed 
inevitable. When he had read the cruel letter, in 
which were such words of reproach as might 
well have stirred the wrath of a far milder man 
than he, he sat silent at his desk until I saw the 
finger-touch of pain about his lips and eyes. 
Then, suddenly, he arose and locked his office 
door and strode up and down the room with the 
tears flowing unchecked down his cheeks. I may 
not tell you of his speech, but never from that 
day forth could I see him as I had seen him 
before. He, too, I believe, felt that, for me at 
least, the mask of harshness had dropped forever 
from his countenance, for upon that occasion 
there began his habit of placing his hand upon 
my shoulder in moments of confidence ; a habit 
which somehow carried with it a greater pledge 
of friendship than could have easily been put in 
words. 

In a true sense — and without forgetting the 
faults which were his — he was a good man. And 
so w^e grieve that we shall see him no more upon 
earth. To those who w^ere still closer to his 
heart than we who met him in the turmoil of 



EEADY-MADE SPEECHES 159 

our daily lives, we extend our fullest sympathy. 
May the blessing of his memory and the knowl- 
edge that now all things are well with him, 
bring to them, in due time, that consolation 
which may soften, though it cannot obliterate 
their grief. 



XXYII 

OPENING ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OP 
A LADIES' SOCIAL CLUB 

Ladies and Fellow Members of the Mid- 

DLETON Ladies' Social Club : 

It is with very great diffidence that I ac- 
cept the honor and responsibility of the first 
presidency of this club. I make no pretense of 
indifference to the compliment implied by your 
choice, and yet the very fact of being unanimously 
selected to a position of such a character renders 
me the more keenly alive to my own want of ex- 
perience. But the remedy for inexperience, I 
suppose, is experience ; and experience must be 
met half way. So, thanking you very heartily 
for your confidence, I take up the pleasant bur- 
den which you have so graciously laid at my 
feet, and shall depend upon your counsel and co- 
operation as to any difficulties which may await 
me by the way. 

And now I have a few earnest words to say as 
to the uses and abuses of women's clubs ; and the 

160 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 161 

thoughts which have taken form in my mind may 
all be conveniently expressed under three heads. 
First, as to the abuse which, usually in the form 
of cheap ridicule, is heaped upon such organiza- 
tions as ours by a certain class of writers for the 
public press. Second, as to a more serious form 
of abuse which comes from club women them- 
selves. Third, as to what seems to me the proper 
uses and the very great and worthy possibilities 
of women's clubs. 

The evil effect of newspaper ridicule is not, 
primarily, the laugh which it causes. So far as 
I know, mothers-in-law live quite as long as other 
women. The real injury is that it prevents, or 
at least delays, the serious consideration and 
adoption of an institution, which properly under- 
stood and conducted, is capable of most excellent 
results. Naturallv enouo^h, both men and women 
of the better sort shrink from public ridicule ; 
and especially when, as in the case we are con- 
sidering, the ridicule is often seasoned for the 
market with the spice of falsehood. The ordinary 
humorous paragrapher, or the J'oung man or 
woman who *' does ''the funny column for the 
daily papers, seldom spoils a good story by a too 
rigid adherence to the facts. 



162 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

Let me relate an illustration which, not so very- 
long ago, came under my own observation. It 
was by no means so serious a case as might be 
mentioned, but it will serve to illustrate the pow- 
erful afl3.nity between newspaper humor and com- 
mon every-day falsehood. It was at a meeting 
of a women's committee which was attempting 
to do something to promote the cause of munici- 
pal art. Some motion had been made and sec- 
onded and the chairman had stated it to the 
meeting. Four ladies arose simultaneously to 
speak, and each began. There was a moment of 
confusion, two of the ladies persisted for a few 
seconds addressing each other directly instead of 
speaking to the chairman. There was some 
laughter, the chairman recognized one of the 
ladies as being entitled to the floor, and the oth- 
ers resumed their seats. That is what actually 
happened. 

But there was a reporter present who, no 
doubt, was experiencing considerable disappoint- 
ment at the absence of anything readable in the 
proceedings. On the following morning, under 
startling headlines, I read an alleged account of 
the incident which could have been an accurate 
description of nothing in the world outside of the 



KEADY-MADE SPEECHES 163 

walls of aa insane asylum. I will admit that 
the account was funny, but, to the uninformed 
reader, it must have left an impression bordering 
very closely on contempt. 

Now it so happened that very shortly after 
that experience, I was present for a few moments 
at a session of the state legislature. While I was 
looking down from the visitors' gallery a member 
arose and made some motion, the purport of 
which I was unable to catch. Instantly, in every 
part of the chamber, men sprang to their feet 
shouting and gesticulating with a vehemence 
which suggested nothing so much as the sudden 
attack of a swarm of angry bees. My first ra- 
tional impression was that the building was on 
fire. Then I found my attention caught and held 
by the actions of one out of perhaps forty of the 
august and the honorable gathering. He was a 
portly, bald-headed, saw-voiced individual, wear- 
ing an exceedingly short sack coat. 

He sprang from his chair toward the aisle as if 
impelled by some sort of electrical attachment. 
In passing, he kicked over his waste-paper basket, 
trod on a cuspidor, and knocked the breath out 
of a page who was inadvertently in his line of 
motion. Regaining his threatened equilibrium, 



161 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

the man fought his way toward the Speaker's 
chair— for a dozen others in that part of the 
chamber were going through practically the same 
performance, each after his own fashion. He 
was waving a handful of legislative literature 
above his head and shouting, " Mis-ter Speak-ker ! 
Mis-ter Speak-ker ! " to the utmost limit of his 
ever memorable voice. 

The Speaker, meanwhile, was pounding with 
an immense mallet upon the butcher's block — no, 
I mean upon the desk before him, and literally 
yelling for order. After much pounding the man 
with the mallet was victorious. The several mas- 
culine maniacs returned, as it were, to their cells, 
and at last the presiding officer was able to make 
himself heard. And what do you suppose he 
said ? 

" The motion of the gentleman from Thompson 
County," he explained, "not having received a 
second, there is nothing before the house." In 
other words, the whole performance had been 
nothing more nor less than an exhibition of 
masculine hysteria. 

Now, not unnaturally, I looked forward to the 
report of the incident with the expectation of 
good reading. It would not have been possible 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 165 

to have imagined a fairer opportunity for the 
keen humored gentleman of the quill. This is 
what I read in the paper of the next morning. 
" Mr. Jarvis, of Thompson, moved to refer 
Assembly Bill No. 318 to the Committee on 
County Government instead of to the Committee 
on Roads and Highways. The motion failed for 
w^ant of a second." 

With these instances as illustrations of the 
attitude of the ordinary reporter toward women's 
clubs and similar organizations, I do not wonder 
that so many intelligent women, who rely upon 
the newspapers for their knowledge, come to look 
upon us with a mingling of amusement and 
horror. 

Of course, it does not follow that, even if Ave 
were better understood, our purpose would meet 
with the approval of all women. My regret, 
however, is not that all women do not believe in 
women's clubs, but that many who might greatly 
profit by such variations in their too narrow^ 
lives are discouraged from the knowledge of the 
possibility. 

Secondly, there is another sort of abuse which, 
in the end, may do more to injure the club idea 
than the thoughtlessness and misrepresentation 



166 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

of the newspapers. It is the trivial, and some- 
times harmful purposes to which many club 
women seek to reduce their clubs. I entirely 
assent to the establishment of clubs primarily 
intended for entertainment. In the lives of 
mstuy \vomen there is no greater necessity than 
the need of something which, for the time at least, 
shall remove them from the dead level of the 
commonplace. But this I maintain. There is a 
wide difference between rational entertainment 
and mere frivolity. There is no occasion for the 
surrender of all mentality in the interest of 
amusement. Again, an illustration is perhaps 
the best means for making my meaning clear. I 
see no objection to a fair proportion of such 
light pleasure as comes from card playing under 
proper conditions at a woman's club. I do, 
however, see very serious objection to any 
woman giving the greater part of her work- 
ing hours to such an amusement. And yet all of 
us have known of just such women. Those who 
are charged with the management of a woman's 
club should see to it that there is such variety of 
entertainment as may give rational pleasure to 
all, but they should also see to it that the club 
bouse is not gradually conv^erted into a resort for 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 167 

the feeble minded. There should be some exer- 
cise of the higher faculties, and in no event 
should the club be allowed to become the medium 
for lowering the ordinary standards of our home 
life. It is entirely possible to make such an 
institution at once entertaining and intellectually 
stimulating. It is with that belief that I 
hopefully undertake the executive guidance of 
this club during the first year of its existence. 

Thirdly, I am earnestly convinced that such 
organizations as this have a very much more 
important function than merely to supply amuse- 
ment, either to the public or to their own mem- 
bership. I wonder if I can make myself clearly 
understood ! There are thousands of women of 
refinement and intelligence, the circumstances of 
whose lives are practically excluding them from 
the society to which they naturally belong. En- 
grossing household duties, families of growing 
children, and restricted incomes, make it impossi- 
ble for them to keep up that routine of enter- 
taining and being entertained which is the sine 
qua non of conventional social life. What is the 
inevitable result ? Is there one within the sound 
of my voice who cannot give the pathetic 
answer? For such women, little by little, the 



168 EEADY-MADE SPEECHES 

walls of life begin to narrow and close about her, 
shutting out the sunlight of cheerful companion- 
ship and making a prison of that which ought to 
be a joy. No human being has greater reverence 
for the home than I, but to keep it at its best you 
must not make it an altar of eternal sacrifice 
even for the mother. 

There is to me something very pitiful in the 
history of such a woman. Slowly she finds her- 
self getting out of touch with the little social 
forms, and missing the small pleasures which — 
meaning nothing much in themselves — are, never- 
theless, the very breath of society. Generally 
she does not complain ; but, inevitably, existence 
shrinks and dwindles until she loses her capacity 
for larger things. To me there seems something 
very like soul murder in the process. 

To such women as these the women's club 
bears a message, and I hope the day is not far 
distant when it may be heard and understood. 
Do not so mistake my meaning as to interpret 
this as suggesting a way to " break into society." 
These women can give as much as they receive, 
but they have not the time or means to follow 
the old conventional ways. If for one afternoon 
in each week, or even in each month, they can be 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 169 

free to enjoy the social advantages of a wisely 
conducted club they will go back to their homes 
with a mental vitality which will accomplish 
wonders for themselves and those about them. 

My appeal is particularly to the husbands. I 
would have them consider seriously the meaning 
of the women's club. I do not say they cannot 
be abused ; but I do say that to the woman upon 
whom the cares of home life are crowding with 
such force as to preclude the elaborate routine of 
society, they offer possibilities which it is a sin to 
disregard. In a way they may fairly be com- 
pared to those great modern periodicals which, 
disavowing originality, bend their vast energies 
to the collection and re-publication of all that is 
best in the current literature of each passing 
month. So the woman's club may condense and 
present in a few hours much of that which is best 
in the social life of the community in which it 
exists. Is it not worth something of sacrifice on 
the part of the thoughtful husband that his wife 
shall have these excursions into the world outside 
of the home ? If there were no other reason, I 
would say ''yes" — a thousand times, ^^yes" — on 
behalf of the home itself. 



XXVIII 

PEESENTATION OF PEIZE TO CHAMPION 
FISHEEMAN (Humorous) 

Mr. SALMOJ^f Bates : 

As chairman of the Committee on Contests 
and prizes of the Isaac Walton Fishing Club it 
has become my duty to present to you the special 
club prize for the year 190-. It is also my duty 
at the same time publicly to announce the com- 
mittee's decision upon the several protests which 
have been entered against this award. This I 
shall do as briefly as possible, trusting that the 
reasoning of the committee may remove the last 
vestige of discontent from the minds of all unsuc- 
cessful contestants. 

To your report of your two days' fishing upon 
Lake Golbrekka the committee received the fol- 
lowing objections : First, as that the trout of said 
lake have been exterminated for more than five 
years your report was manifestly incorrect ; sec- 
ond, that the removal of the quantity of fish re- 
ported and claimed by you, would have resulted 

170 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 171 

in the immediate lowering of the water-line of 
the lake, which phenomenon you do not claim 
to have witnessed ; third, that there is no such 
lake. 

Upon the hearing before our committee the 
protestants were able to sustain only one of these 
grounds — the third. There being no evidence 
upon the first and second, they were decided in 
your favor. This gave you two points to your 
adversaries' one, and the committee of course 
gave judgment in your favor. 

Next, it was alleged, as a ground for denying 
you the award of honor, that your method of 
fishing was unsportsmanlike and unlawful. It 
was charged that, eschewing the rod and reel, 
you have frequently resorted to that means which 
certain of your opponents have irreverently des- 
ignated as the " free lunch system." You are 
said to have distributed large quantities of bait 
upon the w^aters of your fishing pool until the 
fish became fat, tame and sluggish, whereupon 
you captured them en masse by use of the plebeian 
scoop-net. This charge gave the committee much 
concern, and was finally referred to the club 
counsel for a report as to the law. After most 
exhaustive research our legal adviser rendered his 



172 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

opinion. The only law which, in his judgment, 
could possibly bear upon the case, is the Act of 
Congress prohibiting the giving of excessive re- 
bates. As, however, the Act of Congress only 
applies to interstate transactions, and your fishing 
was wholly conducted in the State of TSTew Jer- 
sey, you were found not to be within the penalty 
of the law. 

But, my dear sir, I would be recreant to my 
duty were I not to say to you frankly that our 
award in your favor has been dictated by a much 
higher motive than any connected with these 
trivial details. In perusing your several reports, 
in which are recorded j^our achievements with the 
hook and line, we were impressed with the fact 
that, not onl}^ had you broken the world's record, 
but that, once and for all, you had annihilated a 
most ancient and venerable maxim. No sane 
man, after carefully considering your reports, can 
ever again assert that '' there are just as good fish 
in the sea as have ever been caught." Beyond 
all doubt, you have captured the best of them. 

Before concluding it is perhaps ray duty to 
make some reference to your published account 
of the tarpon which you recently hooked in the 
waters to the south of Florida, but which, by 



READY=MADE SPEECHES 173 

reason of its immense proportions, 3^ou were una- 
ble to land even with the aid of the ship's cable 
and the capstan. The committee have felt obliged 
to omit that achievement from 3^our official rec- 
ord. This is by reason of a doubt as to whether 
it was, after all, a sporting event. Indeed, upon 
much reflection, the majority of the committee 
became convinced that you had, in your zeal, 
hooked on to some subterranean spur or angle of 
the island of Cuba, w^hich — in perfect innocence, 
of course — you thereupon sought to dislodge from 
the position assigned it by nature and the Span- 
ish-American treaty. For international reasons, 
which must suggest themselves to even the most 
obtuse, it was not regarded as wise to give to 
your action that publicity which would result 
from its publication in the records of this club. 

But enough of this ! The prize which I am 
now about to award to you was selected by the 
committee with special attention to your recent 
accomplishments. It is, as you perceive, a work 
of art of no ordinary merit. It is from the brush 
of Mr. Denis McGraw, an artist but just now 
coming into the ej^e of the public. It is admit- 
tedly his best work. In fact, if we exclude cer- 
tain of his performances with the whitewash 



174 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

brush done in the regular course of his duties as 
our club janitor, it may be said to be his only 
acknowledged canvas. You have, I doubt not, 
already discovered its meaning. It immortalizes 
what was, perhaps, the greatest catch recorded in 
sacred history — the capture of Jonah b}^ the 
whale. The fact that in the picture, Jonah and 
the whale are of about equal aize is due to the cir- 
cumstances that Denis devoted so much of his paint 
to the man that he was compelled either to cur- 
tail the dimensions of the fish or open another 
can. As, however, the figures as now portrayed 
do most effectively present the problem which is 
intended to be symbolized — the whale represent- 
ing this club, and Jonah, as it were, impersonat- 
ing the bunch of fish stories which j^ou have so 
enticingly asked us to swallow — Denis concluded 
to risk his reputation on it just as it is. Accept 
it, and with it the compliments of your admiring 
and bewildered club-mates. 



XXIX 

ADDEESS TO GEADUATING CLASS OF 
TEAIIs^ED NUESES 

Young Ladies : 

I congratulate you most heartily. You are 
now regularly enlisted in an heroic army which 
is giving ceaseless and magnificent battle on be- 
half of suffering humanity. Your cause is a 
noble one. If it were possible to picture in one 
vast panorama all the deeds of a single day of 
those who devote their lives to fighting disease, 
mankind would, I believe, be thrilled by an emo- 
tion far more enduring than that which responds 
to the battle of destruction. And to the thought- 
ful mind, how much more impressive — how in- 
finitely more grand in all the elements of true 
grandeur— is the silent and sleepless contest to 
save human life, than the mad and cruel struggle 
to destroy it. Be not discouraged that your com= 
ing and going shall not be heralded by the blare 
of trumpets or the booming of cannon. Deep in 
the heart of the world there is growing a pro- 
found reverence for the thing you are doing. 

175 



176 EEADY^MADE SPEECHES 

Greeting you, as I do this evening fresh from 
your school it would be the merest presumption 
upon the part of one wlio is in nowise skilled in 
your art to offer advice as to its practice. Yet it 
has seemed to me that certain great fundamental 
qualities — qualities which are broadly human, in- 
stead of narrowly technical— are so elemental in 
your work as to justify their discussion even by a 
layman. They are, indeed, so important that it 
is hardly too much to assert that their presence 
or absence must make the difference between suc- 
cess and failure. 

If other justification were needed to approve 
the theme of my brief discourse, it might be 
found in the fact that the two chief qualities 
which seem to me essential to your future useful- 
ness must impress the casual thinker as being 
somewhat antagonistic to each other. I refer to 
alertness and patience. Alertness, which implies 
a high state of mental activity ; and patience, 
which implies a high state of mental restraint. 
To some extent they represent the contrasting 
principles of motion and rest, and j^et each of 
you must possess them both in constant per- 
fection. 

That you shall be ever alertj noting at once 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 177 

each subtle ebb and flow in the vital tide, and in- 
stantly ready to meet the new condition ; that 
your eyes and ears shall be keen to recognize 
changes so slight and fleeting that to the unskilled 
person they are not changes at all ; that you 
must be minutely faithful in following the direc- 
tions of your physician, and yet quick in expe- 
dient when new crises carry you suddenly beyond 
the limits of the chart he has laid before you ; in 
short, that your every faculty must be perpetually 
on guard against the sudden onslaught of the in- 
visible foe — that you shall be all this, at all times 
— is imperative. 

And yet, side by side with this spirit of aggress- 
ive guardianship you must possess an invulner^ 
able patience, a patience which shall be all-endur- 
ing. To you the harshest unreasonableness is to 
be only the symptom of disease. If your patient 
savagely demands the moon, it will be your func- 
tion to induce him to accept a few drops of some 
ill-favored drug instead. If by promises, which 
seem both sane and sincere, he induces you to 
leave the room while he attempts to throw himself 
from the window, you can indulge in none of 
those demonstrations of resentment which for com- 
mon mortals constitute the safety valve of temper. 



178 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

In fact, while the rest of us are mingling with 
human beings whom we may hold to some kind 
of responsibility, you are closeted with a group 
of irresponsible symptoms. But behind those 
symptoms are human lives and human happiness, 
and these are to be the prizes of your striving. 
So, were it mine to write the guiding maxim of 
your lives it would read : " In the service of 
Humanity, eternal Vigilance and Patience with- 
out end." 



XXX 

PEESEIS^TATIOX OF PICTUEE TO PUB- 
LISHEE BY AUTHOES 

Mr. WOKTHINGTOiS^ : 

On behalf of the little group of men and 
women who have gathered about you to-night I 
am requested to say a few words bearing upon 
our common interests and mutual experiences. 
For somewhat more than a decade now your 
house has been the medium through which the 
product of our brains and pens has reached the 
public. For some of us the relation has extended 
over a much longer period of time. It is need- 
less to remind you that throughout the whole of 
our association our relations have been of the 
most cordial nature. Brought together, in the 
first instance, by our business interests, our ac- 
quaintance long ago developed into a friendship 
by which manuscripts, galley proofs and royalties 
seem to have been relegated to the realm of the 
merely transient and incidental. 

I have often wondered by what happy chance 
this literary family of which you are the centre 

179 



180 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

has so utterly escaped the blight of that question 
which lies at the root of so many of the heart- 
burnings of our profession. It may not often be 
put into words, but it has nevertheless done much 
to destroy the '^ esprit de corps" which should 
exist between him who writes, and him who 
publishes a book. Stated crudely that question is 
this ; does the publisher make the successful 
author, or does the successful author make the 
publisher ? As a serious question, sir, it is so far 
removed from our own transactions that we who 
are gathered here can speak of it with entire 
complacence. 

It is an ideal theme for a country debating 
society, because either of its alternative proposi- 
tions may be satisfactorily established by the cita= 
tion of undeniable facts. Substituting fictitious 
names==which, however, will not divert your 
mind from the persons whom I have in mine="let 
me ask you : ^^ Who, outside of their own city, 
ever heard of the publishing firm of Brown, 
Jones & Co., until the genius of Mr. Kipling 
Winston introduced them to twenty millions of 
novel reading Americans as the publishers of 
"The Black Horse Inn"? It would be idle to 
maintain that, in any true sense, the phenomenal 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 181 

sales of that stirring tale were due to the exer- 
tions of that, theretofore, humble house. Brown, 
Jones & Co., doubtless sent their orders in thick 
and fast to the printer, and did a variety of 
other things which were needful that they might 
be able " to deliver the goods," but, beyond all 
doubt, it was the charm of Winston's imagina- 
tion, and his power to body it forth in fitting in- 
cident and attractive prose which captured the 
great book-buying public. 

On the other side of the case, while we do not 
believe that any publisher can bring genuine suc- 
cess to a poor or indifferent writer, it is neverthe- 
less true that an energetic house can, and very 
often does secure to the writer of merely fair 
ability a reasonable measure of success. The 
publisher, by his business connections and his 
hold on the machinery of advertising, controls 
the avenues which lead to the world of book 
readers. To the average author there is no gate 
of entrance to this avenue other than through the 
door to the publisher's office. So in very many 
cases, it is true that the publisher makes the 
author. 

But frankly, sir, I have brought forth this 
question this evening merely that I might pro- 



182 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

nounce my own judgment upon it. To my mind 
it is an individual question and not one which is 
at all capable of a general answer. In each in- 
dividual case, when it comes to adjusting the 
terms upon which a new book is to be published, 
the author and publisher must each consider the 
value of the element which he is about to contrib- 
ute to the joint venture, and must recognize 
fairly the contribution of his associate. The con- 
tract should be a fair adjustment of their several 
rights. 

But the only fact of real importance revealed 
by a consideration of this question is that neither 
publisher nor author can exist without the other. 
Their interests are mutual, and their cooperation, 
one with the other, is the motive power of their 
commercial progress. So we come back to our- 
selves. It has been through the guidance of your 
alert judgment that we have together worked 
out the respective measures of success which have 
crowned our various efforts. To-night, in spite 
of the little excursion which I have been led to 
make into the philosophy of our craft, it is our 
chief purpose to thank you. The delightful art 
, — if it has been art, for it has seemed to us far 
more like instinct— with which you have ever 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 183 

surrounded our business relations with an atmos- 
phere of sentiment, has, I assure you, given you 
a place in our hearts which is wholly unique. It 
is not possible that I should fully portray our feel- 
ings in words. We flatter ourselves that it is not 
necessary. Our years of association can no more 
have been dumb to your faculties of observation, 
than they have been to our own. 

And now, sir, not at all by way of compensation 
for that which cannot be bought or sold, but 
merely as marking this evening as in some way 
different from last night and to-morrow, we ask 
you to accept this picture. If the sight of it in 
the years to come may recall this halting eflfort 
to show you our hearts, we shall be well content. 



EESPONSE TO THE FOREGOING 

Mk. Carteight akd Dear Friends : 

To say that your words have touched the 
tender spot in my heart is but to confess that 
which it would be worse than vain to deny. In 
the proportion by which you, who have gathered 
about me here, outnumber myself, in just that 



184 READY-MADE SPEECHES 

proportion have I received from our association 
more of kindness than I have been able to bestow. 
The balance of the account assuredly is not upon 
my side of the ledger. 

In your kind way, sir, you just now ventured 
to say some very wise things. I subscribe to 
them all. That thought of the mutuality of our in- 
terests is, I believe, much more important than we 
often imagine. Indeed, your words recalled to 
me an experience of long ago which I think I 
must be allowed to relate. One day, when I 
was young in years and new to my business, I 
received a visit from a man of letters whose 
name and books were just then becoming house- 
hold words from one end of our country to the 
other. It was my first encounter with a really 
famous author, and I found myself in a state of 
great inward trepidation. I can confess things 
now which I would hardly have wished to have 
known to the public in those days. 

Without conscious deliberation I found myself 
resorting to little tricks of speech— incidental 
references to this or that publication with which 
I had had something to do, and so forth — tending 
to impress my visitor with my standing in the 
publishing trade, I do not know exactly what 



READY-MADE SPEECHES 185 

•effect it was producing upon him, but suddenly I 
found myself filled with disgust at the smallness 
of the thing. There came to me then the idea 
which you have just expressed. I realized that 
the famous man and I had a great common interest. 
AVithin the next ten minutes I forgot all about 
the greatness of my visitor, and simply gave him 
the best that was in me upon the subject of publish- 
ing and marketing books. Some of it may have 
been crude ; but all of it was sincere, and, in the 
end, he understood me. He left me with the 
knowledge that the writer who put a manuscript 
into my hands would reap the best harvest that 
I could bring. 

From that day to this I have never thought of 
the publication of a book otherwise than as a 
joint venture of the author and myself in 
which each was entitled to the most complete 
sympathy and aid of the other. To that fact— 
to the long continued sense of partnership be- 
tween us— is due, I am sure, that feeling of 
comradeship which now, when we are all getting 
pretty well along on our journey of life, has be- 
come very dear to myself, and — may I venture 
to hope — to yourselves as well. 

It was a very kind thought which prompted 



186 EEADY-MADE SPEECHES 

you to bring about this little family gathering. 
I thank you for it. Even without the reminder of 
your beautiful gift, I am sure I should never 
forget it. 



POPULAR HAND-BOOKS 







QOME books are designed for 
entertainment, others for informa- 
tion. ^ This series combines both 
features. The information is not only 
ll^-^'J^::^}^ i complete and reliable, it is compact 
tr^-^ Tsr '^ , ^^j readable. In this busy, bulling 
age it is required that the information 
which books contain shall be ready to 
hand and be presented in the cleared 
and briefed manner possible. ^ These volumes are replete 
with valuable information, compad in form and unequalled 
in point of merit and cheapness. They are. the late^ as 
well as the be^ books on the subjeds of which they treat. 
No one who wishes to have a fund of general information 
or who has the desire for self-improvement can afford to be 
without them., ^ They are 6x4^^2 inches in size, well 
printed on good paper, handsom.ely bound in green cloth, 
with a heavy paper wrapper to m.atch. 



Cloth, each 50 cents 



THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY 
923 Arch Street, Philadelphia 



ETIQUETTE There IS no passport to good society 

By Agnes H. Morton like good manners. ^ Even though one 
possess wealth and intelj^^ce, his suc- 
cess in life may be marred by ignorance of^^bcial customs. 
^ A perusal of this book will prevent such blunders. It is 
a book for everybody, for the social leaders as well as for 
those less ambitious. ^ The subjedl is presented in a bright 
and intere^ing manner, and represents the late^ vogue. 

LETTER WRITING Why do mo^ persons dislike to 
By Agnes H. Morton write letters ? Is it not because 

they cannot say the right thing in 
the right place ? This admirable book not only shows by 
numerous examples just what kind of letters to write, but by 
diredtions and sugge^ions enables the reader to become an 
accomplished original letter writer. ^ There are forms for all 
kinds of business and social letters, including invitations, 
acceptances, letters of sympathy, congratulations, and love 
letters, 

QUOTATIONS A clever compiiation of pithy quota- 
By Agnes H. Morton tions, seleded from a great variety of 
sources, and alphabetically arranged 
according to the sentiment. ^ In addition to all the popular 
quotations in current use, it contains many rare bits of prose 
and verse not generally found in similar coUedions. ^ One 
important feature of the book is found in the charadteri^c 
lines from well known authors, in which the familiar sayings 
are credited to their original sources. 



EPITAPHS Even death has its humorous side. 

By Frederic W. Unger ^ There are said to be ** sermons in 
^ones,** but when they are tombstones 
there is many a smile mixed with the moral. ^ Usually 
churchyard humor is all the more delightful because it is 
unconscious, but there are times when it is intentional and 
none the less amusing. ^ Of epitaphs, old and new, this 
book contains the be^. It is full of quaint bits of obituary 
fancy, with a touch of the gruesome here and there for a 
relish. 

PI^OVEI^BS The genius, wit, and spirit of a nation 

By John H. Bechtel are discovered in its proverbs, and the 
condensed wisdom of all ages and all 
nations is embodied in them. ^ A good proverb that fits 
the case is often a convincing argument. ^ This volume 
contains a representative colledion of proverbs, old and nevv^, 
and the indexes, topical and alphabetical, enable one to find 
readily ju^ what he requires. 

THINGS WORTH Can you name the colde^ place in 
KNOWING the United States or tell what year 

By Joha H, Bechtel had 445 days? Do you know 

how soon the coal fields of the 
world are likely to be exhausted, or how the speed of a 
moving train may be told } What should you do fir^ if 
you got a cinder in your eye, or your neighbor's baby swal- 
lowed a pin } This unique, up-to-date book answers thou- 
sands of ju^ such intere^ng and useful que^ons. 

3 



A DICTIONARY OF Mo^ of us dislike to look up a 

MYTHOLOGY mythological subjed because 

By John H. Bcchtcl of the time required. ^ This 

book remedies that difficulty 
because in it can be found at a glance ju^ what is wanted. 
^ It is comprehensive, convenient, condensed, and the infor- 
mation is presented in such an intere^ng manner that when 
once read it will always be remembered, ^ A di^indtive 
feature of the book is the pronunciation of the proper names, 
something found in few other works. 

SLIPS OF SPEECH Who does not make them? 
By John H. Bcchtel The be^ of us do. ^ Why not 

avoid them ? Any one inspired 
with the spirit of self-improvement may readily do so. ^ No 
necessity for ^udying rules of grammar or rhetoric when this 
book may be had. It teaches both without the ^udy of 
either. ^ It is a counsellor, a critic, a companion, and a 
guide, and is written in a most entertaining and chatty style. 

HANDBOOK OF What is more disagreeable 

PRONUNCIATION than a faulty pronunciation? 

By John H. Bechtcl No other defed so clearly 

shows a lack of culture. ^ This 
book contains over 5,000 words on which mo^ of us are 
apt to trip. ^ They are here pronounced in the cleared and 
simple^ manner, and according to the be^ authority ^ It 
is more readily consulted than a didlionary, and is ju^ as 
reliable. 



PI^ACTICAL A new word is a new tool. ^ This 

SYNONYMS book will not only enlarge your vocabu- 
By John H. Bcchtcl ^^^Y^ but will show you how to express 
the exad shade of meaning you have 
in mind, and will cultivate a more precise habit of thought 
and speech. ^ It will be found invaluable to busy journali^s, 
merchants, lawyers, or clergymen, and as an aid to teachers 
no less than to the boys and girls under their care. 



READY MADE SPEECHES Pretty much everybody 
By George Hapgood, Esq. in these latter days, is 

now and again called 
upon " to say a few words in public.** ^ Unfortunately, 
however, but few of us are gifted with the power of ready 
and graceful speech. ^ This is a book of carefully planned 
model speeches to aid those who, without some slight help, 
mu^ remain silent. ^ There is a preliminary chapter of gen- 
eral advice to speakers. 

AFTEI^-DINNER The dinner itself may be ever so 
STORIES good, and yet prove a failure if there 

By John Harrison ^^ ^^ mirth to enliven the company. 

^ Nothing adds so much zest to an 
occasion of this kind as a good ^ory well told. ^ Here are 
hundreds of the late^, be^, brighter, and mo^ catchy Tories, 
all of them^ short and pithy, and so easy to remember that 
anyone can tell them successfully. ^ There are also a 

number of seledled toa^s suitable to all occasions. 

) 

5 



/ 

TOASTS Mo^ men dread being called {ipon to 

By William Pittcngcr respond to a toa^ or to make an ad- 
dress. ^ What would you not give for 
the ability to be rid of this embarrassment ? No need to 
give much vs^hen you can learn the art from this little book. 
^ It vv^ill tell you how^ to do it ; not only that, but by ex- 
ample it will show the way. ^ It is valuable not alone to 
the novice, but to the experienced speaker, who will gather 
from it many sugge^ions. _ c |^ O 

THE DEBATEI^'S There is no greater ability than 
TREASUR[Y the power of skillful and forcible 

By William Pittcnger debate, and no accomplishment 

more readily acquired if the person 
is properly direcfted. ^ In this little volume are diredions for 
organizing and condudting debating societies and pradtical 
sugge^ons for all who desire to discuss que^ions in public. 
^ There is also a li^ of over 200 que^ons for debate, with 
arguments both affirmative and negative. 



PUNCTUATION Few persons can punctuate properly ; 
By Paul Anardyce to avoid mistakes many do not pundlu- 

ate at all ^ A perusal of this book 
will remove all difficulties and make all points clear. ^ The 
rules are plainly ^ated and freely illu^ated, thus furnishing 
a mo^ useful volume. ^ The author is everywhere recog- 
nized as the leading authority upon the subject, and what 
he has to say is pradtical, concise, and comprehensive. 



